Dreams of Closure
by D Wolf Falls
Summary: Completed! Ulrich and Aelita are on a quest for vengeance. XANA took something from them, and now they want to return the favor. Will they be able to finish what was started so long ago? Sequel to Dreams of Insanity.
1. Two Years Later

Welcome to D Wolf Falls version 2.0. That's right, version 2.0. I've been upgraded and I'm ready for anything that the community has to throw at me. -Gets hit by a boulder-Wobbles back and forth- Okay, I'm ready for anything except that. So let's take a look at the special features of version 2.0. Well, it looks like you get a new story. -Loud applause from fans- Thank you, thank you. Okay, I can see that you're all ready toget on with this, but you'll have to wait another minute.

Disclaimer: I don't own Code: Lyoko or anything that has to do with it or anything else.

As said in the summery, this is the sequel to "Dreams of Insanity". It's not too important to read that if you haven't, although I would. If you haven't read "Dreams of Insanity" then you will probably be a little confused with this, but there's nothing I can really do to stop you if you just read on.

I have changed nothing except the author's notes in this so if you did read "Dreams of Insanity" then I guess you really don't need to read this first chapter, but it will be a nice little refresher.

That's all from me. So go ahead and sit back, get comfortable, grab a nice hot cup of hot chocolate and read.

* * *

They say that life goes on, but it doesn't, it can't. 

It's been about two years since _it_ happened. Since the event that changed my life forever. It seems that they were so close to getting out of that wretched place, but then _he_ had to pull them back, killing all three of them.

It wasn't easy trying to explain how three people somehow mysteriously died. It was even harder to try to explain everything that really happened to there parents. It was hardest to try and explain it to Yumi's parents. Whenever I would mention her name I began to choke up. At first they didn't want to believe that it was all true, but neither did I. But soon they came to realize that their children were secret heroes and died after saving so many lives and they were so proud of them for that.

It took Kiwi a while before he finally accepted his owner being gone. He now accepts me as his new owner. I guess you could say he adapted me as his new owner. But I can tell he misses Odd. He may be a dog, but he makes good company. I can talk to him about anything, even Lyoko. He makes me feel better when I'm feeling down. He's the best thing I have, besides my memories, to remember Odd.

Aelita and I continue to fight on. I know that we are the only ones that stand between _him_ and total world domination, and that scares me at times. But at other times it gave me the strength to keep going on, to keep _him_ from winning.

I was devastated after the return trip and I couldn't find them. I searched and searched, but could never find them. But I think Aelita was hit worse than me. She had never lost anybody that she ever cared about. She would constantly roam across the vast reaches of Lyoko searching for _him_, hoping that _he_ had some physical form that she could go after.

She had never felt such vengeance or rage before. There were quite a few times when she would feel like she was so close to _him_ that she could feel his evil. But whenever that happened, a tower would activate and we would have to go back into action. After we would return to the past she would return to the spot that she felt _him_ at. But _he_ was never there; _he_ would always run from her. It was almost like he was afraid of her, like she was the only thing that could destroy him. Maybe that's why she wasn't given a weapon; maybe her real weapon was the power to destroy _him_.

Aelita and I have been working on the anti-virus for her. But being that I am not the computer genius that Jeremie was, it's taking much longer to get done. I only hope that we can get her out of her prison before it's too late. If we can't then it will make their deaths worthless.

He's tried many things to try and stop us. He's tried destroying the factory at least a half a dozen times, polluting the environment a few times, plane crashes, train crashes, he's even tried to crash trucks that were filled with highly explosive gas or highly toxic chemicals into several different places. But the one that had me worried the most was when he trapped us all in the school again. I couldn't get to Aelita to help her, but she overcame the monsters. I guess she was in the forest region so she climbed a tree and created a path along the trees so that she could walk right to the tower. It's a good thing that the monsters weren't wasps or able to hit her because doing that caused her to lose ninety life points.

It's seems that after every attack he gets more and more powerful. I fear that soon he may be able to take control of things that he was never able to before. I just pray that he may not be able to take control of the weather. If he does then there may be absolutely no hope in defeating him.

I fight as hard as I can in Lyoko. A few times Aelita almost didn't make it to the tower before I was de-virtualized. But we always pull through. As the battles got tougher and tougher, I got stronger and stronger. I am the only one left to get Aelita to the tower safely, so I have to do whatever is needed to get her there.

There have been several nights that I lay awake in my room, hoping to here Odd's snoring just one more time. I've even stuck my earplugs in my ears hoping that while there in he will sneak back into our room and everything will go back to normal.

There have been several times that I've wanted to just give up all hope and shut _him_ down, ending this whole thing once and for all. I've even gone down to where _his_ switch is, ready to end it all. But I never can. Whenever I try that and whenever I feel like giving up all hope, I can feel Yumi's hand on my shoulder, I can hear Odd's laugh ringing between my ears, and I can hear Jeremie telling me not to give up hope and to bring Aelita back to Earth for him.

Several times Aelita has asked me to materialize her so that neither one of us may feel as empty as we are. Those short visits have been my only happiness since it happened. It's not that I love her, well I do but only as a friend. There's no way that I could be in love with her or anyone else for that matter. The one I loved is gone before even knowing that I loved her. But I must cope, for Aelita's sake and my own. We must keep our mission in front for once we complete that then I may finally get the sense of closure that I'm looking for.

One day Aelita and I will stop _him_ and we will bring her to Earth for good. Nothing will stop me from completing Jeremie's goal. It's ironic really. Jeremie always dreamed of bringing Aelita to Earth and spending the rest of his life with her. And it seems that his dream is becoming a reality while he becomes nothing more then a dream.

I'm failing school now. I'm supposed to graduate in a few years, but I don't know if I will. Everyone thinks that it's all because of the loss of my friends. There partially right. But I'm also trying to think of new ways of stopping _him_ before anyone else can be killed.

We need to stop him soon. We can't keep relying on the return trips to save everyone. One day there will again be someone that it won't heal. Someone's life could just all of a sudden end and it would be all my fault. I would be just as guilty as _him_. No, I can't let that happen, not again. The world rests on my shoulders and all I can do is keep my ground. Well no more. No more running from _him_. We will stand and fight or die trying.

When _it_ happened the students at school tried their hardest to comfort me. They would try and include me in whatever they were doing, but I always turned them down. They've tried to be my friends, tried to replace my friends, but they can never take their places or hers. Now they've become nothing but a faint memory in everyone else's minds, nothing more then a dream from long ago.

I eat alone now at all the meals. Sure people have tried to sit with me, but my constant dark mood seems to send them all away. People tell me to get over it and get on with my life, but how am I suppose to get on with my life when almost everything that matters in it is gone forever.

Jim was so distraught when I quit the soccer team. He said that I was the main reason that we were doing so well in our conference. He even said that I was the reason that we have been able to defeat our long time rivals, Lincoln. But there was no way that I would be able to play. I had too much to do and had too much on my mind.

One of these days we will succeed, and _he_ will pay dearly for what _he_ did to us. We will show _him_ no mercy. _He_ will never again be able to torment anybody, and I will finally be able to put my past behind me.

A sense of closure is all I'm looking for. To be able to put all the pain that _he_ caused me behind and get on with my life, a life that should have been spent with Odd, Jeremie, and Yumi.

Yumi, if only you had listened to me, if only you had stayed at the factory then you would still be here with me. If only there were someway to bring you back. But there isn't any way to bring you back. I'll be stuck wondering what could have happened instead of what did happen. I miss you guys so much. I will always remember you.

A future. A future. I had a future. I had a future, it was meant to be with them. But now it's not. Now it's without them, without three of the people that I cared about the most. God I miss them. If only the situation could have been the other way around, if only it had been me trapped there and not them. If only... But it wasn't me, it was them. And I must fight on to keep there mission, our mission alive.

Rest in peace guys.

* * *

Ulrich closed his diary and slid it back under his bed. 'If only we could have waited a few more seconds, then maybe you'd be here with me. If only...' Ulrich's thoughts trailed off. 

Aelita's face appeared on Ulrich's computer, or what once was Jeremie's computer. "Ulrich, I'm getting close to XANA again."

Ulrich got up and went over to the computer. "Okay Aelita, I'll head to the factory. This time we'll get him for sure. He won't be able to hide behind his towers anymore. This time we'll stop at nothing until he pays for what he's done to us." Ulrich left the room and headed for the factory.

He decided to take the sewers in the park. He climbed down into the musty sewer system and grabbed his skateboard. He paused briefly and looked at the two dusty skateboards and the dusty scooter before continuing his way through the complex sewer system.

Ulrich arrived at the factory minutes later. He swung down his rope and landed near the elevator. He walked into the elevator and pushed the down button. He stopped at the super calculator level and got out of the elevator. He walked over to the computer.

"Okay Aelita, I'm here. I'll set up the self transfer program and meet you at 60 degrees south." He began the set up.

"Alright Ulrich, see you in a minute."

Ulrich went back to the elevator and headed down to the scanners. He got out of the elevator and stood in front three scanners, two of which have been inactive for a couple of years. Ulrich let out a soft sigh and went into his scanner. He felt the normal sensations of being scanned into Lyoko, the spinning, the scanning, and the large gust of wind at the end.

He virtualized in the desert region. He looked around and saw Aelita at his left waving at him. He ran over to her and asked, "Okay Aelita, where is he?"

Aelita pointed to her right and said, "He's west of here, maybe about a mile or two."

Ulrich nodded and the two remaining heroes headed west. They didn't get to far when the ground began to pulsate. They stopped and Aelita said, "Ulrich you know what this means. XANA's launched an attack east of here. We need to get over there, who knows what he's planning on doing to Earth."

"We can't worry about that right now Aelita, we need to get to him before he can escape again."

"Ulrich are you saying that we just forget about Earth in order to settle a score with XANA?"

"We're going to finish this right now. Like I said, he's not going to be able to hide behind those towers anymore. We're no longer going to play the game by his rules."

"Okay Ulrich, let's finish this." The two heroes continue running westward, continue running to there final showdown with XANA.

* * *

What do you think? Let me know in a review, you know those things are always nice to receive to show that a writers work in appreciated. 

What's next for our two heroes? Forward march to XANA and possible death. But what's this? Is there more to the final battle then meets the eye? Find out next time on "Dreams of Closure".


	2. Coming End

Finally, I've updated. This has probably been the hardest update for me, what with the busyness and the writers block, but I did it. This chapter is going to be a little slow, but it's needed. A lot of action should be showing up in the next chapter. I can't wait to write that, I have so many good ideas running through my head right now for it, let's just hope that I can keep them until I get a little more time to write.

Review Reply:

top20fan13: Thanks for the review and here's the next chapter.

thegreenrose: I'm glad you think it's realistic, that's probably the best comment you can make to a writer. And sad too, good good good, it was supposed to be sad. I'm glad you like it and here's the next, of hopefully many, chapter.

David: The fight is coming up next chapter. Hope you stick around till then.

I tell you, you guys are so wonderful. But enough of me talking, how about what you're hear for, the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Code: Lyoko.

Oh, one more thing. Because I don't know how often I'll be updating I'll be putting a little last chapter summary right here. This way you don't have to keep going back to see what happened.

Last time on Dreams of Closure: It's been two years since XANA killed Odd, Yumi and Jeremie. Ulrich writes in his journal about how his life has been for this time, miserable. Aelita alerts him that she is close to XANA. Ulrich goes to Lyoko and the two start there journey to fight XANA.

Now, on with the show.

* * *

Ulrich and Aelita continued heading west through the vast desert of Lyoko. While they were running, there was a soft, clank clank sound coming from behind them. They stopped and stood there. 

"You think XANA would've learned by now that it takes more then two crabs from behind to stop me." Ulrich said to Aelita as he unsheathed his sword and threw it behind him. The blade hit the crab right in its weak spot. It was thrown with so much force that when it smashed into the symbol on the crab it almost went through the crab.

The crab exploded and sent the blade tumbling through the air back towards its owner. Ulrich held up his hand and grabbed the hilt of the sword. He turned around and faced the remaining crab.

He charged right at the crab and, with his amazing speed, he dodged each laser that was fired at him. When he reached the crab, he sliced it right in half so fast that the crab didn't even have time to register what had just happened. He sheathed his blade and ran up to Aelita. They then continued on there quest for vengeance. While they were running, the crab that Ulrich had just cut in half began to collapse on itself and then it exploded into nothing but pixels.

They ran for about a quarter of a mile when they started to see something in the distance. They ran a little further and noticed it was a tower, but no ordinary tower. This tower was different. For starters, it was about twice as big as a normal tower. And, there was a black aura or glow around it.

"Aelita, is that what we're looking for?" Ulrich asked, his voice a little shaky.

"I think so." was her reply.

"What is it?"

"It must be the Central Processing Tower. It contains all the information in and about Lyoko, even this conversation we're having right now."

"So this is where XANA's hiding?"

"It would make sense, since he is a part of Lyoko."

"Wait a second, how come we've never seen this tower before."

"My guess would be that after each return trip the tower moves locations to gather any missed information from the battle and the activated tower."

"So this tower has all the information in Lyoko, right?"

"I believe so."

"Then isn't it possible that it contains the anti-virus?"

Aelita looked shocked. "That's right, if XANA created an anti-virus then the information would be stored in this tower."

"And what would happen if you deactivated it?"

"I'm not sure, but my guess is that it would destroy Lyoko, and may even cause some problems on Earth."

"We better not do that then. Is there anything that I should know about this tower?"

"No, I think that you'll be fine with the information I have already given you."

"Well what are we waiting for, let's get over there."

"Ulrich, this is going to be dangerous. Who knows what XANA has up his sleeves."

"We've waited, and now I'm ready to get him for what he did to our friends. But you're right, it would be foolish to just charge in there. We need a plan."

They both stood there thinking for a minute before Aelita came up with a plan. "I have a plan, it's probably the only thing that will get us over there."

"Okay Aelita, what is it?"

"You're going to have to charge in and take out any enemies that show up while I sneak into the tower. I'm not sure how good of a plan this will be, but it's the only thing we've got."

"Okay Aelita, but you need to be careful in the tower. XANA is very tricky and any weakness that he can get out of you, he'll exploit it and us it to his advantage. Do what you can to avoid him, even if it means deactivating the tower."

"Okay Ulrich, and you stay safe too. If this doesn't work, we still have a tower to deactivate."

"Don't worry about that now, there should be no real threat to Earth, since every other time you've been close to him it was just a hurried attack that never caused any real damage."

Now that they had a plan, the two ran towards the tower, and XANA.

They arrived at the tower minutes later. Ulrich unsheathed his sword again and got ready of any monsters that might approach them. He surveyed the area.

Then, there was a diabolical laugh coming from within the tower. "Hahahahahahaha." A figure in a black cloak stepped out of the tower. "Put that stick away before you poke you're eye out."

"XANA." Ulrich said with clenched teeth as he got into his fighting stance.

The figure let out another laugh. "Don't get so tense Ulrich; you'll never beat me like that."

Ulrich charged at the figure, sword ready for a strike. He ran as fast as he could, but before he knew it he was lying on the ground about ten feet to the side of the figure. With speed quicker than Ulrich's, the figure must have swung its arm out and struck Ulrich right in the face causing him to fly to the side.

Another laugh could be heard. "That's at least thirty life points there Ulrich. You should know better then to charge head long into battle like that."

"XANA!" Aelita yelled at the figure.

"Yes my dear Aelita? What is it you want?"

"Leave Ulrich out of this, this is between you and me."

"But I thought this was all part of your plan, he fights and you sneak into the tower."

Aelita stayed silent. He was right, that was their plan.

"Well come now, get inside the tower." he said.

"Aelita, go now." Ulrich said weakly as he pulled himself up with his sword.

"Ulrich..."

"Go now! This could be our only shot at victory. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"You heard him Aelita, you're champion wants you to go, I suggest you do it before I lose my patience with you."

Aelita looked over at Ulrich and then faced the tower. She disappeared inside the tower.

"Now it's just you and me Ulrich." the figure said looking over at the boy that was still trying to get up.

* * *

So what do you think? Did you like it, not like it, or are you indifferent. I'd love to read what you think. 

So who is this mysterious figure? Is it XANA? How will Ulrich fare against him? Will Aelita find everything that she's looking for? Will Ulrich and Aelita get their vengeance? Find out next time as the cloak is lifted, in more ways then one, and revels something you may have hoped not to see.

3000 points to anyone who can correctly guess who the cloaked figure is!

Don't forget to check my profile for updates on this and other stories. See ya later.


	3. The Good Fight

Before I get started, I would just like to apologize for being so late with this chapter. I'm not gonna give you any excuses, if you want the reason it's still up in the update section of my profile. It's been just about a month and I feel really bad about not being able to update in so long. But it was kind of a good thing because a lot of the ideas for this chapter I just got within the past few days. I made this chapter extra long for you guys. Now it's time to reply to some reviews and give out some points.

top20fan13: Thanks. -Laughs- No, it's not Milly. But I'll tell you what, for making me laugh you get 1300 points.

Doggiegal: That would be two no's and a yes. 3000 points to you and sorry about the wait.

AltonShadefoot: Thanks.

UlrichGirl: I did make it one of them so 3000 points to you.

Disclaimer: I don't own Code: Lyoko, it's as simple as that.

Last time on Dreams of Closure: Ulrich and Aelita found XANA's hiding place, the Central Processing Tower of Lyoko. Aelita entered the tower unaware of the dangers that await her within while Ulrich stayed outside to face XANA's new minion who has yet to reveal him/herself. The chapter ended with the cloaked figure saying, "Now it's just you and me Ulrich."

Read, enjoy, and review.

* * *

Ulrich stood up. "Not for long it won't be," he said. "TRIPLICATE!" he yelled as two clones split from his sides. The three Ulrichs got ready to strike the cloaked figure.

* * *

Aelita walked to the center of the platform as the rings of the platform started to light up. She stopped and slowly rose to the upper platform. She walked to the center and placed her hand on the screen to begin accessing the tower information. 

"What do you think you're doing?" A voice boomed inside the tower.

"XANA." Aelita replied in a cold tone as she started to look around for the location of the voice.

"Let me guess, you're here to try and get revenge on me for eliminating your friends, and you're also looking for the anti-virus. Am I right?"

"Yes, and soon you will be gone for good."

XANA chuckled a little, "To bad you won't find the answers you seek."

"Of course I will, this tower holds all information in and of Lyoko." She turned back to the computer screen and continued searching.

"But who says I'm not blocking them from your access."

"And who says I don't have programs that can get around your block."

"You ready to do this?" Ulrich asked.

* * *

"Whenever you are." 

Ulrich motioned at his clones and the three ran toward the figure while he (the figure) just stood there. Before the clones even had a chance to attack, they were deleted by a couple of flying objects. Now the figure looked around for the real Ulrich who had disappeared when his clones rushed into battle.

"Oh Ulrich, come out and play." he taunted.

Before he knew it, Ulrich was on his shoulders. "It's time to see who you really are," Ulrich said as he jumped off his shoulders. He kept his sword out so that it sliced the cloak that concealed the figure. Ulrich jumped back as the cloak fell to the ground. Who was hidden under the cloak? Ulrich looked in sheer disbelief and horror at the figure standing in front of him. All he could do was let out a barely auditable, "No."

* * *

"Oh really, and how could you do that? You know that I know any information that pertains to Lyoko so you have no secrets that you could possibly hide from me." XANA slowly came towards Aelita, hoping that he could rid himself of this little annoyance once and for all. 

Aelita could feel XANA slowly creeping up on her. She knew exactly what to do. "Computer, activate program picture zero three."

"_Locating program"_ the supercomputer said.

"Oh and what exactly is that supposed to do Aelita, are you gonna show me how happy you were with your 'friends'?"

"_Program located"_

"You'll see XANA"

"_Program activated"_

Aelita continued to look through the information in the tower while XANA's presence moved closer and closer to her. Just as XANA was getting within striking distance of Aelita, a green wall appeared around her stopping him.

"What is this?" the now irate program asked Aelita.

"A little program that Jeremie created just for you."

"That is illogical. Any program that is created pertaining to Lyoko is sent to this tower and I become aware of it."

"This program is special. On a computer that wasn't connected to Lyoko, Jeremie created a program to mask programs from you and this tower so that you would think it's nothing more than, oh say a picture."

"There is no way that _child_ was smart enough to do that."

"Jeremie was smarter then you seem to give him credit for."

"No matter, it will only be a matter of time before I can delete this program just like all the other ones that child tried to use. And then you can join him."

* * *

Ulrich started to walk back in disbelief. "No, it can't be, you can't be here... Odd." 

"Oh but I am, and I'm better then ever before."

"No, you can't be, you're supposed to be dead."

"I never died, in fact I feel more alive now then I've ever felt."

"But you were... and we... Aelita said there was no way you could survive."

"I'm here now, aren't I? And I'm even better then I was before, watch. LASER ARROW!" he shouted as an arrow shot from his glove.

It was fast, so fast that Ulrich didn't even have a chance to react until it made contact with his stomach. Ulrich clenched his stomach in pain, but slowly regained his composure as the virtual pain went away.

"Odd, why did you do that?" Ulrich asked, confused by Odd's actions.

"I work for XANA now." Odd said in a monotone voice.

"But why? What about us and our cause?" Ulrich was even more confused with his friend's confession.

Odd let out a chuckle. "Ulrich, I'm faster, stronger, and all around more powerful because of XANA. He has given me a second chance, a chance to do some real good. And look what else I got." He reached behind himself and pulled out a sword, similar to Ulrich's, that was sheathed on his back.

"How can you do any good, you're working for the evil that we fought so hard to try and stop?"

"Let's just say I'm working from the belly of the beast." Odd quickly shot two more arrows at Ulrich. But Ulrich was ready this time. He quickly dodged one of the arrows, but the other one hit him in the arm.

Ulrich ignored the pain. 'This can't be Odd, the Odd that I knew would never join up with XANA. So what do I do? Should I fight him?' The little voice in the back of Ulrich's head knew exactly what to do.

'Fight,' it told him. 'If you don't fight then you'll never be able to help your friends.'

Ulrich now knew that he had to fight. He unsheathed his sword and charged at Odd. Odd shot two more arrows at Ulrich, but Ulrich blocked with his sword. The two arrows flew back at Odd with increasing speed and hit him in the stomach. Odd clenched his stomach in pain.

"You can't work within the 'belly of the beast' without first becoming its dinner."

Odd charged at Ulrich, ready to attack him with his sword.

'He's defiantly much faster, I'll give him that. But he's still new with a sword.' Ulrich thought as Odd got closer to him.

Odd swung at Ulrich, but Ulrich blocked. He tried again and again Ulrich blocked. Odd kept on swinging and Ulrich kept on blocking. "I'm changing XANA." Odd said in between swings.

Odd stopped attacking and moved back a few feet.

Now it was Ulrich's turn to attack. He charged at Odd. Odd quickly held his own sword up to defend. The two blades struck resulting in a loud CLANK that filled the area.

They stood there, neither one wanting to give up any ground to the other while struggling to hold their own ground. Then Ulrich spoke, "You can't change XANA, you can only be changed by him. He'll corrupt you with power. You can't make a difference like that."

"But I am making a difference, his attacks have been coming less frequent and have been less severe."

Realizing that neither one would give, they jumped back, separating from one another. "What happened to the good old days Odd? What happened to us fighting the good fight? You remember, good versus evil."

"I'm still fighting the good fight, it's just that I'm playing by some new rules."

Ulrich saw that Odd was lowering his defenses. He took the opportunity to strike. He quickly ran up to Odd and slashed his front side.

Odd had lowered his guard and didn't realize that Ulrich was attacking him until it was too late. He clenched his stomach in pain.

Ulrich stood over Odd. "Keep playing by those rules and you'll lose the game."

* * *

"You think that you can win, but you can't Aelita." 

"You're not gonna get me to lower my guard that easily." Aelita continued to search for the information that she was looking for.

"Fine, but Odd certainly gave up hope on you pretty easily."

Her friends name. It stung her when XANA used his name like that. "Odd's dead, he didn't turn his back on us." Aelita's voice was laced with sorrow as she remembered what had happened two years ago.

"Check outside and see for yourself."

XANA was finally getting to her, he knew it and so did she. But she was curious about what he was talking about.

A giant screen appeared to the side on the tower wall. On it Aelita could see exactly what was happening outside the tower.

There was Odd. She gasped at the sight of him. She knew that he couldn't have survived, but there he was. Aelita also saw Ulrich. He was talking to Odd. Then Ulrich was bending over in pain. After a second, he got back up and they were talking some more. That's when Odd pulled out a sword.

"I thought he could do with a few upgrades, only being equipped with ten arrows didn't really seem fair in a fight." XANA said.

Aelita didn't respond, she just continued to watch the screen. She still couldn't get over the fact that she could see Odd right before her face. 'It's a trick.' she thought. But she knew it wasn't, she knew it was Odd. But as she watched, she noticed something. The cat like creature that Ulrich was fighting wasn't moving exactly the same as the one that she knew.

Aelita turned away from the screen and back to her own research.

"What, done already? But they're just getting to the good part."

* * *

Ulrich knew that if he wanted to win, he would have to strike again while Odd was still down. He moved back over to Odd who was clenching its stomach. "I'm sorry Odd." he softly said as he swung again causing the boy to flinch in pain. Ulrich backed away from Odd. "Computer, life point update." Ulrich yelled up to the sky. 

A computerized voice answered his call. _"Ulrich, thirty life points. XANA's monster, twenty life points."_

Odd stood up. He was laughing. "Fight the good fight, good versus evil. Huh, you still think everything is just black and white." He became serious. "It's not as easy as that, there are also gray areas. Good and evil, they're just words and nothing more than that."

"You're right, but in this case I would have to say that it's pretty much good versus evil."

"Haven't you been listening to what I've been saying?"

"And did you not just hear the computer? You're not Odd, you're just one of XANA's lackeys." Odd got an agitated look on his face. "What, you don't like lackey? Hmm... How about toady?" Odd grew even angrier with that last remark. "Oh, wait, I got it. Flunkey! That's it. You're just a flunkey here to do XANA's bidding. The real Odd would never sink so low as to work against his own friends, no matter what XANA is offering him."

Odd couldn't take any more of the verbal abuse that Ulrich was giving him. Blinded by his own rage, he charged at Ulrich. Ulrich quickly dodged and tripped Odd.

Ulrich stood over Odd one more time. "It's over, you've lost."

"I've lost? Do you have any idea what you're about to do?"

"What I have to do too save Aelita and the world."

"No, haven't you learned anything? There's no right and wrong. There are only choices. XANA's offering paradise. And you chose against it."

" Paradise? No, XANA wants to either kill everyone or he wants to find a way to take away our free will."

"And look where free will has gotten you. Wars, murder, pain, suffering, heart break."

"I didn't say we were smart. I said it's our right. It's what makes us human, something that you're not. Now to finish this so I can help Aelita." With that said, Ulrich thrust his sword down into the fake Odd. He slowly de-virtualized into nothing but pixels. After nothing was left, Ulrich pulled his sword out of the ground.

Then something caught his attention. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move behind the tower.

He turned around. "Show yourself!" he yelled at the person.

* * *

Toady- A person who flatters or defers to others for self-serving reasons 

So what do you think? Send a review to let me know. I'm going to get started on the next chapter tomorrow so I will try my best to have it up by Friday, but it might end up being later then that. How about another chance to get some points?

Who is the new person hiding behind the tower? 2000 points for the right answer. There will be an updated point total at the end of the next chapter and in my profile. Now I bet all of you are wondering what the points are for. Well, the winner gets something special at the end of the story. So leave a review and get some points.


	4. Memorable

**Note: The end of chapter three has been changed. Check under the last life point update to read the new ending of that chapter.**

What's up my readers? I want to apologize, again, for it taking a little while for this chapter to get posted. I had a little writers block, again, and I needed to make a few changes to the previous chapter. It was also pretty hectic at school with finals not long ago and then the beginning of new classes this week. But it's done and I even have a little bit of the next chapter done.

Disclaimer: Again, I don't own Code: Lyoko or anything that has to do with the show.

Review Reply:

Doggiegal: Yep, you were right.

top20fan13: Thanks you for the wonderful review! I'm glad that you liked the battle scene, I wasn't too sure how it would turn out, but it looks good. I hope that Amy will keep your points safe, and I'll be sure to give her the new points.

Angel of Worlds: I like your name, it's very interesting, I mean that in a good way. You really got into that didn't you? Those were some really good guesses. You made a lot of sense with them. I liked your thinking with Odd, personally I never actually thought of that but it makes sense. You'll actually see who Odd really was in future chapters. And thanks for the wonderful first review.

Last time on Dreams of Closure: Ulrich unmasked the cloaked figure and reveled him to be Odd, while Aelita entered the tower and began to locate information on the anti-virus. It wasn't long before XANA began to bother her. She activated a program that Jeremie had created to keep him away from her, and it worked. Outside the tower Odd and Ulrich were having an epic battle. Odd was trying to explain to Ulrich that he was working for XANA for the good of man, but Ulrich wasn't buying. After a long battle, both physical and verbal, Ulrich landed the final blow at Odd. And what's this, another player has joined the field. Who is it? Keep reading to find out.

* * *

"Ulrich? Ulrich is that you?" the person asked coming out from behind the tower. 

When Ulrich saw who the person was, he couldn't believe it, but he really wanted to. "Yumi?"

She ran up to him and gave him a big hug. "Oh Ulrich, it really is you." she said almost ready to cry.

Ulrich, surprised by her actions, blushed a little. "Are you really Yumi?" he asked a little unsure because he remembered how easily he wanted to believe that that was Odd earlier.

"Of coarse it's me, who else would it be?" she said letting go of him.

"Sorry, it's just getting hard to tell who's who now a days."

"Gee Ulrich, I thought that you would at least know who I am." Yumi said putting her hands on her hips.

"Well it has been two years. Speaking of that, where've you been for the past two years?" he asked her.

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"Okay, well where to begin. Ah yes. Two years ago when Odd, Jeremie and I were stuck in XANA's world and Aelita had to deactivated the tower, I'm guessing she must have otherwise you wouldn't be here, the world around us began to disappear. Just before we were deleted, XANA took us. He took us and somehow locked us in a tower. Well actually he locked Odd and me in the tower together and put Jeremie somewhere else."

"Not to long after that he found someway to make imposters of us, virtual clones so to speak. He made a fake Odd and a fake me. They were stronger, faster, and even had a few more tricks then us. After that he took Odd somewhere else and left me stuck in the tower. Eventually I broke out and went looking for Odd and Jeremie."

"After a while of searching, I found Odd." She paused. "But I was too late." She was ready to break down in tears.

"Yumi, what happened?" Ulrich asked with concern.

"Odd... he was... fighting the fake him... and he was losing. I tried to help him, but... the imposter... killed him. I was too late." Yumi chocked out as tears fell from her eyes.

"Odd's dead? So I really wasn't fighting him, it was the fake one." Ulrich said, his head lowered. He had mixed emotions at that time. He was glad that it hadn't been his friend that he had killed, but only an imposter. But he was feeling greatly depressed at the loss of his friend.

"Yeah, I've been tracking him for a long time. Then I came upon this tower. That's when I saw you two fighting. I saw that you were holding your own, so I decided not to interfere."

"I see. And did you ever find Jeremie."

"No, I've only got an idea about where he might be. But the last time I was over there it was covered in monsters."

"Then we better get over there. Jeremie would do anything to save us and I'm going to do the same for him."

"But you only have 30 life points left, you should rest a little."

"I'll be fine, I have a few tricks up my sleeves."

"If you say so. Let's get going."

* * *

"Just give it up Aelita, you'll never find the answers you're looking for." 

"You seem to be getting a little on edge if you think that I'll never find it." Aelita replied still looking at the screen.

"Are you kidding, I'm just trying to save you from wasting your time looking when you could be suffering by my hands."

"You're so thoughtful XANA." she said sarcastically. 'Wait. What was that?' She scrolled back up a little bit, looking for what she just missed. She read and re-read. 'It's not here.' she thought. 'All this time looking and it's not here. Someone has it, but it's not very specific on whom. Wait, there's something else here.' Another window came up.

"You look like you've found something interesting. What's that you've found?"

Aelita didn't reply, she just watched the video playing in front of her.

She then felt someone enter the tower. She hoped that it was Ulrich because she wanted to tell him what she found. Aelita walked over to the edge of the platform and looked down. She couldn't believe what she saw. It was Ulrich and Yumi and they were about ready to travel to another region. 'I have to stop him.' she thought.

* * *

"Alright Ulrich, hold my hand and we'll jump together." Yumi told him. 

"Okay." he replied.

"Ulrich! Get away from her!" Aelita yelled from above.

"Did you hear something Yumi?" Ulrich asked her.

"Not a thing."

"Ulrich! It's a" they jumped. "trap." Aelita feel onto her knees.

* * *

Ulrich and Yumi walked outside of the tower. They were now in the forest region. 

"Where to now?" Ulrich asked her.

"I think it's that way," she said as she pointed to her left.

They began running north along the tree covered path, Yumi leading the way. After a couple of minutes they stopped in front of another tower.

"Is this it Yumi?" Ulrich asked as he began looking around for monsters. "There doesn't appear to be any monsters heAHHH!" he screamed out in pain as he fell to the ground. A metal fan flew away from him and back to its owner.

Yumi began to laugh. "Foolish boy, do you think I'd really lead you to you're friend?"

"Yumi... why?" Ulrich asked trying to find the strength to pick himself up off the ground.

"A distraction to keep you from helping your 'precious Aelita'."

Ulrich began to pick himself up off the ground. "So you're one of the clones, I figured as much." he said weakly.

"Oh really, it seems that Jeremie wasn't the only genius around. So tell me, if you knew I wasn't the real Yumi, why'd you follow me?"

Ulrich was now standing up straight. "Information, I wanted to see if what you were saying was really true. It may have cost me twenty life points, but I think I got what I needed."

"Really, or was it because I look like her. Did you follow me because I look like your fallen love?"

"Yes." Ulrich said in a serious tone.

"You cling to what is gone. Is there anything in your life but grief?"

"There's hope. Hope that one day Aelita and I will finish what our group started without lousing one another."

"And that's enough to live on?"

"Not always, but it's what they, it's what she would have wanted me to do."

"You humans are more intriguing then XANA led me to believe. I wish to study you further, but I have been given my orders to destroy you."

"Well don't let me stop you from doing your masters biding."

"And what kind of challenge will you be to me? You're fading. You only have ten life points left. You'll last three minutes at best."

"Then let's make it memorable."

* * *

"I can't believe I let him slip through my fingers like that and right into XANA's trap. I've let him down." 

XANA laughed. "Not only did you let Ulrich fall right into my trap, you lost the anti-virus too."

Aelita's eyes lit up. An idea. 'Could she have it or is he trying to trick me?' she asked herself.

"I know what you're thinking Aelita, and no, it's not a trick. She really has the anti-virus. Why should I care if you know? Ulrich will be finished off soon and there's no way that you could defeat my creation."

"You forgot one thing XANA." Aelita said as she rose back to her feet.

"Oh, and what's that?"

"Ulrich still has a few tricks up his sleeves. He won't be beaten."

* * *

"Computer! Activate program 'My Time'!" Ulrich yelled up to the computer. 

A blue aura appeared around Ulrich. _"Program activated."_ the computer said.

"What's going on? What's happening to you?" Yumi asked.

"What, are you scared?"

"No, it's just that"

"_Program completed."_

"Ah, much better. Now, are you ready to get this thing started?"

* * *

Well I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter, I know that it was pretty fun to write, when I could that is. I'm going to try and find some time this weekend to type up some more of chapter 5, but we'll see. I'm not going to make any promises about when the next chapter will be out, as I have the ACT coming up so I need to study for that when I can. 

Points question: Only one this time, What did the blue aura do? 2,500 points to whoever can answer correctly. I'll also award some bonus points for any guesses on how Ulrich knew that it wasn't the real Yumi. All points are being kept track of on my profile, feel free to check 'em out. It'll be under the "Dreams of Closure" section.


	5. Who We Are

**Disclaimer:**

The author of this fic, D Wolf Falls, does not, in any way, shape, or form, own Code Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

Ulrich had defeated Odd when out from behind a tower, none other than Yumi appears. She tells Ulrich all about XANA's plan from kidnapping her and Jeremie and Odd all the way to making imposters of her and Odd. She also informs Ulrich of Odd's death. While all this was happening, Aelita found out that the anti-virus is not actually held in the tower, but someone has it. She also uncovered a strange video. Aelita was the first to realize something was wrong when Ulrich and Yumi came in the tower to transfer to a different region. Aelita tried to warn Ulrich, but he didn't seem to hear her. In the forest region, after reaching another tower, Yumi attacked Ulrich. He revealed to her that he already knew that she was an imposter but went along with her to gather information. At the close of the chapter, Ulrich activated another program that did something to him. Now, read how the story further unfolds in the next chapter of "Dreams of Closure".

* * *

Ulrich and 'Yumi' stood facing each other. There was a deafening silence in Lyoko. It seemed that all stood still as the two fighters stood there, staring at each other. 

'Yumi' was the first to break the silence. "You seem stronger now. That program, it healed you didn't it?"

Ulrich stood there, never letting his gaze drift from her. If things were different then he would have enjoyed being able to stare at her, not like this of course, but he remembered when he always dreamt about her, how one look at her beauty would make butterflies flutter about in his stomach. But that dream was crushed long ago. This, this wasn't her. Sure she appeared the same on the outside, but on the inside she was different, he could sense it. He didn't like it.

"Well?" came her demanding voice. It snapped Ulrich out of his thought.

"Yeah, that's right." he replied with distaste. He had to put an end to it. He spoke again. "You ready to do this?" His gaze never broke from hers.

"What's the hurry; can't we just stay here and talk, for old time's sake?"

Her voice. She used her voice for the last part of that sentence. He didn't like to here that, that thing use her voice. "There's no 'old time's' between us." Hatred poured from his low voice. "And never use her voice again; you don't deserve to use her voice."

A sly smile slid across her face. It was a smile of enjoyment, and not the fun go to the amusement park enjoyment, no, it was the enjoyment of seeing someone's anger and pain. "So, my using her voice brings pain to your heart. Perfect," she sneered.

If Ulrich's look could be filled with any more hatred than now would have been the time. He couldn't stand this much longer. He so badly wanted to just tear this imposter to pieces, but he knew that he had to keep his cool. He needed to keep a clear head through this, otherwise he would surly make a fatal mistake.

Ulrich decided not to waste anymore time just standing there. He slowly unsheathed his sword and got into his fighting stance. He stood there and continued his stare on her. His eyes were filled with pure hatred while his body was filled with determination and his head filled with thoughts of revenge.

* * *

Inside the Central Processing Tower there were two presences, one good and one evil. One had no physical form and was linked to the tower while the other was merely there on reconnaissance. 

Aelita stood in the center of the tower contemplating her next move. Should she stay or should she go? Where would she be more useful? She knew that if she were to somehow locate Ulrich and that thing, she would only be a liability to his success. But she needed to get the anti-virus. And what about what she saw on the screen just a minute ago? She would have to investigate that further.

The omnipresent voice of XANA boomed throughout the tower. "To help or not to help, that is the question." It laughed as it mocked Shakespeare. "Confused are we my dear Aelita? Don't know what you should do?" It had her right where it wanted her. She didn't know what she was going to do, and if it wasn't for that blasted program that she activated that protected her then it would have already taken care of her. But it didn't matter, it knew that it would soon crack the code that kept that program running, then she would be completely vulnerable to it's attacks.

It was soon shaken from it's thoughts when it noticed Aelita beginning to move about.

She had conjured up a plan, and a good plan it was. She knew that she needed to try and help Ulrich, but she also knew that she needed to do more research. Like Jeremie once told her while he was working on her materialization, 'Nothing great was ever done without a little research.' For a moment her thoughts lingered on the boy that had fought so hard at rescuing her. But she soon got back on track. She knew that she had to use her time wisely because soon XANA will figure out how to break the program surrounding her. Her plan was to research as long as she needed to and get out of the tower before XANA would get to her.

Aelita moved her hand up to the invisible screen. Her handprint appeared and she was ready to begin researching again. But first things first, she needed to locate Ulrich.

* * *

His gaze never left her. His feet never moved. His fingers twitched around the hilt of his sword as they knew what was soon to come. He couldn't help it. He so badly wanted to slice through her so that he would never have to live through this nightmare again. But he couldn't. If he let his emotions control him then he would most certainly lose. But there was some part of him that didn't want him to attack. She looked just like her and he would never want to do anything to hurt her. But that was only a small part of him. The rest of him knew for a fact that this wasn't her and had no problem with attacking her. 

She just stood there, not even attempting to grab her fan or anything, she just stood there with a smirk on her face.

'Well it's now or never,' he thought. Ulrich brought his sword back and ran as fast as he could toward her. He got closer and closer with every passing second, but she never brought up her guard. 'Why isn't she trying to block?' Mere feet from where 'Yumi' stood Ulrich jumped into the air.

Time seemed to slow down as he flew through the air getting ever closer to her. She had yet to make even a single move. Then her smirk grew wider. He was mere inches away from her. She quickly pulled out her fan and brought it in front of her to block his attack. Ulrich's eyes grew wide as he witnessed her speed. Ulrich's sword slammed against 'Yumi's' fan. Now one would think that the force of the attack would have shattered the fan into little pieces, but amazingly it held together. The fan not only absorbed the impact of the blow, but it also knocked Ulrich several feet backwards.

As Ulrich lie on the ground, thoughts flew through his head. 'Her speed! How did she move so fast?' But this was not the time to be taking a nap as Ulrich soon found out when the metal fan landed about an inch from his head. This startled the boy and he quickly jumped up.

She laughed a mischievous laugh. It was nothing like the laugh he remembered. "Did I wake you from your nap? I'm sorry, but I thought we were going to fight."

Rage overtook control of Ulrich's body. He charged at her. Ulrich slashed at her right, she blocked. He slashed at her left, she blocked. He slashed at her front, she still blocked. He kept attacking and she kept blocking. Right, left, front, block, block, block.

"You know Ulrich," 'Yumi' said in between blocks, "I was a little surprised that you actually attacked me. You know why?"

"Could it be because you look just like one of my closest friends? Is that it?" He replied while still keeping up his attack.

"Well yes, but also because I know the feelings you have for this one, you love her."

"And how would you know that?"

"Besides through our interactions today, XANA. XANA saw what you two almost did a couple years ago."

Ulrich remembered the event. It was something that he would never forget. "How would XANA know about that?"

With her next block, 'Yumi' knocked Ulrich backward causing him to fall. "XANA sees everything that happens on Lyoko. That was but one event that it witnessed."

She smiled at the fallen boy. "So tell me Ulrich, how does it feel to be so close to death?" 'Yumi' smirked as she stared at him.

Ulrich was confused. She liked that. So helpless and confused, he's nothing more than a play thing for her.

* * *

'So, he's in the forest region at,' Aelita thought as she looked at the data in front of her, '20 degrees North. That won't be too hard to get to.' She closed the window she was just looking in and brought up another window. 'Now to figure out what I was looking at a few minutes ago. Hmm, you know it has been a little while since XANA last bugged me. It must be working hard on trying to crack the program.' Aelita let out a little laugh. 'It'll have fun with that; Jeremie did make it almost un-crackable.' 

Aelita didn't know how right she was because at that very moment XANA was indeed trying to crack the code to Jeremie's program. It was working hard but kept coming up with errors and such. "How did this _boy_ create something like this that is so unbreakable?" it asked no one in particular.

* * *

Ulrich stood back up and prepared himself incase she were to attack him. Then he spoke. "What do you mean 'so close to death'?" 

"Think about it Ulrich, what almost took you away from reaching the Central Processing Tower?" She replied.

Realization suddenly struck Ulrich's face. "You mean the activated tower, XANA"

She cut him off, "That's right, life points are now active. When I kill you, you'll be dead for good." Her smirk widened.

After taking in all of the information, Ulrich returned to his pissed off look and low voice. "And what makes you so sure that you'll defeat me?"

"Because you're so weak." 'Yumi' walked toward Ulrich. "You're pathetic. You couldn't save your friends so what makes you think that you can save yourself." She stopped only a foot away from Ulrich.

He didn't move from his stance, he just tightened his grip on his sword. He wouldn't admit it, but that last comment really hurt him. The thought of lousing his friends always hurt him, and this time was no difference. "You may be stronger than the original Yumi, but I've gotten stronger too." Ulrich brought his sword forward. "And I've picked up on a thing or too." As fast as he could, he sent the blade forward. Without any time to react, the blade flew freely into her stomach. "It's kill or be killed now," 'Yumi' looked down at her wound and up to Ulrich as he pulled his sword out. "I thought you would have known that." 'Yumi' looked down at the new hole in her stomach. Ulrich sheathed his sword while she fell backward. He turned around and walked away.

"Now it's time to help Aelita and end this nightmare." he said as he walked back toward the tower that brought him to this region.

* * *

'So if I refabricate the matrix and send it through the scanners then it should work.' Aelita thought as she worked on trying to crack this problem. 'I can feel XANA getting ever closer to erasing the program. I better finish this up.' Aelita ran a simulation to make sure that everything would work. 

While Aelita's scan was running, XANA was busy cracking the code that stopped it from attacking Aelita. It had just about completed it's task when it heard a, "Success," rain out through the tower. XANA needed to hurry if it ever wanted to finally eradicate this little nuisance that had stopped it from completing it's plans for all these years.

The simulation was a success! But now was not the time to celebrate. 'I better get out of here so that I can tell Ulrich about my discoveries, but before I go...' Aelita's thoughts trailed off as she returned to the screen in front of her. She typed at a speed only surpassed by Jeremie. 'Done. Now that should keep XANA from messing with any of those programs.'

Aelita walked away from the screen and floated down to the bottom platform. While she was descending, she had a feeling of uneasiness travel through her. She knew what it meant; XANA had just about broken the program. She didn't know how right she was because as soon as her feet hit the lower platform, XANA managed to break the protective barrier that surrounded her. She knew it and could feel it coming closer to her. Aelita went as fast as she could to the edge of the tower and jumped just when XANA was mere inches away from her.

* * *

Ulrich ran through the forest, back towards the tower that brought him into the forest region. He needed to get to Aelita to let her know about everything that he had found out, especially if there would be some way to get to Jeremie, that is if what 'Yumi' said was really true. He wasn't to sure if a follower of XANA could really be trusted. 

After several minutes of running, Ulrich came to a stop. He could have sworn that he heard something up ahead. He wasn't sure who or what it was, so he did the best thing he could think of doing, he hid. Ulrich just merely stepped over to the side and hid behind one of the many trees while he waited for whatever was coming towards him.

Ulrich was able to breathe a sigh of relief when the person that he had heard came into full view. He moved out from behind the tree and halted the person. "Aelita, it's you. I was getting a little worried there." He seemed a bit at ease as he spoke.

"Oh Ulrich, I'm so happy that I finally found you." Aelita cried out. She seemed somewhat distressed, and Ulrich took notice to it.

"What happened in the tower?" Ulrich's voice was now full of concern.

"It's nothing big, XANA just almost got to me."

"You mean XANA broke Jeremie's program?"

"Yeah, I managed to get out just in time. But before it managed to get through, I was able to find some important information."

"So did I. It seems we have a bit of a problem though."

"What is it now?"

"You remember that activated tower?" Aelita nodded. "XANA made life points active and I've lost quite a few in the last battle."

Aelita looked horrified with what Ulrich said, but she didn't have time to say anything before he started again.

"But I do have some good news. Jeremie could still be alive." Aelita smiled. "I'm not sure if that's true or not, though, because it was that fake Yumi that told me about it. Unfortunately though," Ulrich paused. "She also said that Yumi and Odd were dead."

Aelita just continued to smile, even with this heartbreaking news. Ulrich gave her a puzzled look. Then she spoke, "Oh Ulrich, it's okay. They're alive, all of them!"

"What?" Ulrich practically jumped up and down upon hearing the news. "How do you know?" he asked after he calmed down.

Aelita continued to explain, "While, as I was going through the database, I somehow found them. The information just seemed to pop up out of nowhere."

"Where are they? Can you save them?"

"They're," a look of terror crossed her face, "behind you!" she yelled at Ulrich.

Ulrich turned around thinking that he was going to see his friends. What he saw instead was a metal fan flying right for his face. He quickly moved out of the way as Aelita got behind a tree. Ulrich quickly turned to look at whomever through the fan. Now, one would expect to see 'Yumi' standing there, holding on to her wound. But instead, she stood there, smiling, and no wound to be seen.

Ulrich looked surprised. He thought for sure that he had finished her off, but there she stood, perfectly fine. "You're healed." That was all Ulrich could manage to say.

"As long as I have life points," she caught the returning fan, "I'll be healed. It's one of the perks of working with XANA."

Ulrich quickly grew defensive when he noticed how 'Yumi' was holding her fan. He knew that he needed to protect Aelita, now more than ever before. But what could he do? This imposter had almost killed him earlier. If it hadn't been for her letting her guard down then he never would have been able to land a blow on her.

His life points were running pretty low, he could sense it. He had to of lost at least sixty life points from their earlier battle. So what now, keep fighting? He'd lose, that he knew for certain. Then Aelita would be left unprotected.

Aelita peered from behind the tree and as if reading Ulrich's mind, she yelled at him, "Ulrich! You need to use the 'special program' to beat her."

Ulrich's features changed from defensive to shock as Aelita yelled that to him. He couldn't believe that she would suggest using _that _program. "Aelita," he yelled back to her, "You know that that program was only experimental, Jeremie never finished it. We don't know if it'll even work. Besides, it can only be used once and if we screw it up then we won't have a chance."

Aelita knew he was right and had a right to be worried, she would be too if she was in his spot, but it was there only option. Nothing else they had would be able to bring down the imposter.

"It's our only option. We've got no other choice."

Ulrich spread his arms out. "Alright Aelita," he calmly stated. "Computer. Activate program 00179, Connection!" Almost immediately, Ulrich was raised into the air. _"Program activated."_ the computer told him. A purple aura surrounded Ulrich.

'If he thinks that I'm just going to stand idly by while he powers up, then he's a bigger fool then I originally thought he was.' 'Yumi', with her fan ready, threw it at Ulrich.

Aelita saw all this unfold and knew that if Ulrich were to be disturbed while the program was working on him, then all hope would be lost. Aelita did the only thing that she could think of doing. She jumped out from behind the tree watching closely as the fan drew closer to Ulrich. Aelita jumped forward making her body parallel to the ground below her. Her body tensed, she hoped that her timing was just right.

END OF CHAPTER

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* * *

Author's Notes: **

Hehe, sorry for having to leave you guys with such a cliffhanger, but I figured this would be the best place to stop, and I just like leaving you with an evil cliffhanger. Well, as you probably have noticed, some things have changed. First off, the change in writing style. When I started writing this chapter about a week and a half ago, it just started flowing like this. You see, my writing style is improving, I can see that when I look back on the first chapter of "Dreams of Insanity". Besides that, I just feel that I should try and provide as much detail in my writing as possible. Next, you may have noticed the increased length of this chapter. That was caused by two things, guilt and need. I felt a little guilty about taking that couple week break and how horrible I've been at updating chapters for this story, so I felt that I should make this chapter a little longer to help make up for it. And, when I got to my usual stopping place, a little after two thousand words, I felt that this chapter needed more because, to me, it didn't seem like I advanced the plot enough. Also, you guys may have noticed that I changed the formatting for the chapter. Instead of having two big author's notes, I moved it down to one and put it at the end of the chapter. Don't worry though, all reviews will still be answered, their just coming up a little later. So yeah, those are pretty much the changes that I've made.

Now, as for my thoughts on this chapter, I'm very pleased with it. I've worked on this for about an hour or less each night for the past week and a half and it came out really good. This is the longest chapter that I've ever written, that's out of both stories. It's just over 3,000 words and seven pages long. I feel that this is the best chapter I've ever made, what do you think?

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Review Responses: **

**top20fan13:** Thanks for the awesome review. Yep, you're right, 2500 points to you. Haha, nope, made by XANA wasn't on here, but maybe it should have been. Yeah, she was a pretty good imposter.

**Doggiegal:** Yep, that's right. You get the 2500 points. That's a pretty good guess, we'll say 200 points for that. I'm glad that I've got you confused (I don't mean that in a mean way).

**

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Question: **

So the answer to the last question was pretty obvious, it healed him, but today's question will be much tougher. What is the purple, soon to be another color, aura doing to Ulrich? If anybody can get this right, it will be a whopping 5000 points. (This one's pretty tough).

As for how did Ulrich know that 'Yumi' was an imposter, I'll still leave that up as a bonus question. Points will be given on how accurate I judge your answer to be.

Remember, all points are located on my profile.

Well thank you for taking the time to read this long chapter, I hope it wasn't too much for you. Now I'm done so go ahead and leave a review, I love to hear people's thoughts.


	6. Yumi vs Aelita

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Code: Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

Ulrich and 'Yumi' were in a stand off. Ulrich was very hesitant to attack because of 'Yumi' looking like his lost love. Aelita finished her research and left the CPT just before XANA was able to get to her. She hurried off in Ulrich's direction just as Ulrich was running back towards the tower after he believed he had defeated 'Yumi'. Ulrich and Aelita meet and Aelita informed him that there was a chance that Jeremie and the others could still be alive. That's when 'Yumi' came up behind Ulrich. Aelita urged him into activating another program, but this one was incomplete. He finally complied and activated program 00179, Connection. As Ulrich rose into the air, 'Yumi' attacked him. Defenseless, Aelita did the only thing that she could to help him, she threw herself in the way of the attack. Did she make it on time to save Ulrich?

* * *

Aelita flew past Ulrich's body and, true to her timing, the fan hit her in the stomach. She fell to the ground as the fan flew back to 'Yumi'. Realizing that 'Yumi' was sure to attack again, Aelita got back up. She now stood to the side of Ulrich.

'Yumi' caught her fan and smiled. Aelita's actions entertained her as she know saw that Aelita would do anything to keep Ulrich safe. Aelita wouldn't be able to keep up the offence for to long though since each hit by the fan subtracted twenty life points from her.

Aelita also realized this and began to form a new plan in her head. She had to think of something that she could do to protect Ulrich so that even if she were to be deleted he would still be safe. One idea did linger in the back of her mind though. It was something that she hadn't used in a long time, and the memory of it brought sadness to her features.

Unfortunately for Aelita, 'Yumi' wouldn't give her too long to think because at any moment she would throw her fan at Ulrich again. There were two potential outcomes to this that 'Yumi' could think of, both ended in her favor. Either the fan would hit Ulrich and disrupt their only means of hope at defeating her, or Aelita would try and deflect the fan again. Either way, one of the two would end up permanently deleted.

Aelita quickly evaluated all her options and chose the one that she believed would protect Ulrich the best. She knew that she would regret this, but it was her only hope, it was their only hope. She put her hands together and knelt down on the ground. An angelic note soon escaped from her mouth.

'Yumi' knew what this meant. She was gathering energy to shift the ground to her will. What would she have it do, 'Yumi' didn't know, but she figured that it would be something to protect Ulrich. 'Yumi' couldn't allow that. She needed to dispose of him and Aelita. She too evaluated her options and decided to attack Aelita over Ulrich. Why? If she can break Aelita's concentration then she won't be able to protect Ulrich, thus assuring her victory.

'Yumi' threw her fan just as the ground below Ulrich began to shake. Four slates of rock sprang out of the ground and grew toward Ulrich. The fan sped closer and closer to Aelita. The four pieces of rock came together sealing Ulrich inside a protective bubble like structure. A faint, purple light could be seen coming through the cracks, obviously from the aura surrounding Ulrich.

Aelita quickly jumped up and over to the side, just missing the attack. The fan slammed into the bubble. As the fan hit, a pink light could now be seen through the cracks.

Aelita looked over at the casing that housed her friend and a smile came to her face. 'Good, he's a third of the way done.' she thought. 'I just need to keep her busy a little longer and then he'll be ready to fight. But I'd better be careful, I should be down to only 30 life points now.'

'Yumi's' face turned to disappointment. Not only had she missed her target, but now Ulrich will be given a chance to do whatever it was that he was doing. Unless... If she were to destroy his sanctuary and disrupt him before he finished, then she wouldn't have any worries. But Aelita wouldn't just step aside and 'say attack my friend,' no she needed to be taken care of too.

This would be an easy task for 'Yumi', or so she thought. Aelita was down to thirty life points. She had no way to defend herself, and with how easily 'Yumi' was taking care of Ulrich, Aelita would be a piece of cake.

But, there was one thing that 'Yumi' was missing, a weapon. Her fan was still stuck in the wall that Aelita had created. Luckily for Aelita, when she looked over at the dome that housed her friend, she noticed the fan slightly protruding from it.

Aelita stood up and moved closer to the dome, while 'Yumi' reached back like she was going to throw her fan. All of a sudden, 'Yumi's' face turned to shock when she realized that she didn't have her fan. She looked around trying to find it. 'Where did I put that stupid fan?' she thought. Then she realized where it was, 'Oh no! I left it in that wall!' 'Yumi' looked over just in time to notice Aelita pulling the fan from the wall.

"Great, now what do I do?" 'Yumi' muttered under her breath.

Aelita held the fan, ready to throw it at 'Yumi'. "It looks like the tables have turned Yumi. Ulrich has almost completed 'transformation', and you are left defenseless."

"We'll see who's defenseless soon enough." 'Yumi' shouted back at Aelita.

Aelita stared at 'Yumi' and let the fan loose. It traveled with amazing speed toward 'Yumi', but she didn't seemed fazed whatsoever. She just kept a straight look at Aelita. When the fan was about three quarters of the way there, it stopped. It just stayed, unmoving, in midair, and there was now a red aura around it.

'Yumi' let out a laugh as se looked at Aelita's surprised features. "You haven't forgotten already have you Aelita? Yumi possessed the ability of telekinesis, and so do I."

One barely audible word escaped Aelita's lips, "Shoot."

'Yumi' used the full power of her mind and sent the fan hurtling back towards Aelita. Aelita jumped out of the way, just missing it. Again, the fan lodged itself into the dome, but this time 'Yumi' made sure that she brought it back. As the fan left, a small crack appeared in the dome, one just big enough for 'Yumi' to notice. "Is that thing breaking already? But I've barely touched it! And just think, you wasted fifty life points on the piece of junk." She grabbed hold of her fan.

Through the cracks of the dome, the light escaping from it changed now from pink to red. Aelita was ecstatic, to say the least, when she noticed the change. "Two thirds done. You see that 'Yumi', he's almost finished. And then," Aelita smiled, "You will be to."

'Yumi' stared angrily at Aelita. She yelled, "Shut up!" and threw her fan with all the rage she could muster. The fan collided head on with Aelita's, well head. Aelita flew backwards as the fan returned to 'Yumi'. 'Yumi' caught it. "What was it you were saying?" she huffed out. "Something about be being finished?" 'Yumi' started to move closer to Aelita. "You're the one's who's gonna be finished." 'Yumi' was fully pissed now.

Aelita lie on the ground, pain coursing through her head. She could feel 'Yumi' walking closer to her. 'Not like this, it can't end like this.' she thought. 'Come on Ulrich, I need you now.' There was no response from the dome.

'_Aelita'_ A disembodied voice called her name. It was a voice that she hadn't heard in a long time, a voice which she hoped she would hear again even though she knew its owner had long since passed on.

"Jeremie? Jeremie, is that you?"

'_Get out of here Aelita. Go, run now.'_ His voice sounded urgent and worried. 'That's just like Jeremie, even after death he's still trying to keep me safe.' She laughed inside.

'_Aelita, run!'_

'Yumi' had long since stopped in her place. 'Who's she talking to? There's no one around here but us.' she thought. That's when she noticed Aelita start to stir.

Aelita stood up. It was hard and took her a little longer then she thought it would, but she made it up. Her next action totally caught 'Yumi' off guard; she ran. Aelita ran away from the site. 'Yumi' watched Aelita run. She was sort of sluggish, but, then again, she was still regaining her strength from that last hit.

'Yumi' awoke from her dazed state. "Hey, get back here Aelita! We're not through here! I still need to kill you!" she yelled at the retreating figure.

'_Come on, just a little farther.'_

Aelita ran as fast as her tired body would move. But it wasn't fast enough, for soon 'Yumi' was right behind her. And then, she was on the ground. 'Yumi' had tackled her.

"I hope you didn't think you could get away from me that easily Aelita." 'Yumi' sneered as she pushed herself off of Aelita.

"Jeremie, what do I do now?" she asked. He didn't respond. "Jeremie? Where'd you go?" Still nothing. 'He's gone again.'

"I'm sorry, but Jeremie's not here right now. He's dead, remember? Remember how you shut down that tower and ended his life?"

'Jeremie, please come back to me.'

The land now began to shake.

"What? What's going on Aelita?" 'Yumi' asked her.

Aelita let out a weak laugh. "He's coming."

"Who's coming?" 'Yumi' demanded. "Is it Jeremie?"

Aelita just shock her head. That's when 'Yumi' looked back at Ulrich's dome. The land was shaking strongest around it, and it was beginning to crack. A bright light shone through the cracks. It was yellow, and it shone as bright as the stars in the night sky.

Aelita laughed again. "He's finally done. Now you're finished Yumi."

Then, the dome exploded. Pieces of rock flew in every direction. But the bright, yellow light glowed just as bright. And in the center of it you could see the dark outline of a figure. It was Ulrich, a whole new Ulrich and he was ready to end this.

**

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Author's Notes:**

First off, I want to apologize again for taking so long to update, again. School's been pretty busy so I didn't get a lot of time to write. But no need to worry about that anymore. School's almost over and after that I'll have plenty of time to write. And, sorry this chapter is so short, well short compared to the other ones, but this is where I wanted to leave off at. But, besides it being a little short, I'm pretty happy with this chapter. It accomplished what I wanted it to accomplish, and it even had a nice little fight between 'Yumi' and Aelita. How was that anyway? I plan on working on the next chapter for a couple of hours tonight, figuring out what's going to happen and how it'll all play out. How about I give myself a little goal to meet? Let's try and get this next chapter posted by/on the last day of school, this Thursday. Think I can do it? Let's hope so. And, for all of you who know of DeviantART, look me up sometime and see a whole nother side of D Wolf plus some other stuff. (Click homepage on my profile to go there)

Now, there is one more thing I'd like to say: details, details, details. Make sure that when you read, you look at the details. Details are one of, if not the, most important parts in a story. A story that lacks details isn't really much of a story. Besides, details can be windows into the future. Just look for them, they're easy to spot. Think of names and colors, for example.

**

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Review Response:**

**top20fan13:** Thank you for the wonderful, and encouraging, review. You know, it's reviews like that that really get me motivated. As for your answer, sorry but that's wrong. But, you will get to see the full extent of his new 'power' in the next chapter (hopefully). As for the bonus question, I'd say that's a pretty good guess. But, I don't know how he would get a copy of the script, even I don't have one. +700 points

**Doggiegal:** Thanks for the review. I'm sorry, but no, none of your guesses are correct.

**Coop:** (New from "Insanity") Thanks for taking the time to read and review almost all of "Insanity".

**

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Help Wanted:**

Summer is approaching. You know what that means. Free time! As summer begins I plan on getting a new chapter up each week. Now, in order to do this and still keep the quality good, I'm going to need a little help. What I need is for someone who I can send each chapter to as soon as I finish it and they can catch any mistakes I miss, because, as we all know, the author of something knows exactly what's going to happen and so that makes it easy to miss mistakes. And, besides catching any mistakes, this person will also need to make sure that the chapter makes sense. If anybody would be willing to help me out, it would be greatly appreciated. Just send me a message, either via review, email, or AIM. Make sure to let me know who you are and what your email address is, if I don't already know it. Thank you.

**

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Question:**

What happened to Ulrich? 4000 points to whoever can answer right.

Hint: Look at the details.

As always, point updates and other neat stuff is located on my profile. And make sure you drop a review on your way out, I love to read what people think of my story.


	7. Ulrich vs Yumi

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Code Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

Aelita tried desperately to protect Ulrich while the program that he had activated went into effect. Everything she tried resulted in her losing life points. Her only option left, make a protective barrier around Ulrich. After she had accomplished that, she and 'Yumi' fought. Aelita tried her best, but couldn't stand up to 'Yumi's' awesome power. With a little encouragement from a certain someone, she found the strength to run away, but she was far to weak, she only had 10 life points left, to get very far before 'Yumi' tackled her. After 'Yumi' got off of Aelita, the ground started shaking. 'Yumi' and Aelita looked over toward where Ulrich was. His protective barrier blew up and he stood inside a bright yellow light.

* * *

'Yumi' and Aelita looked over at the swirling mass of yellow that was not to far off in the distance. All they could see was the black outline of Ulrich. Zooming in closer, one could see that he hadn't changed much. In fact, he looked exactly the same except for on little notch extending from each of his gloves. 

"Aelita," Ulrich yelled, "get to the nearest tower and heal yourself."

"But Ulrich, I want to stay here and help you." Aelita pleaded with him.

"Aelita, I need you away from here."

"But..."

"Now!" he yelled even louder than before. Aelita nodded, turned around, and ran. Luckily for her, the nearest tower wasn't to far off in the distance.

"Hey, wait a minute. I wasn't done with you yet." 'Yumi' yelled at Aelita's retreating figure. As if on command, five roachsters materialized next to 'Yumi'. "Attack her." she commanded. The roachsters turned and began to chase after Aelita. But, before they could get too far, the ground began to shake and a wall sprang up in their path. "What? How did she do that? She didn't have enough life points to do that?" 'Yumi' asked, obviously confused. She wasn't the only one, the roachsters were also confused. They stared at the wall, trying to compute a way to get around it.

"Yumi!" Ulrich's yelled to get her attention. She turned back around and looked at him. "You have done quite a few unforgivable actions lately. You tried to kill Aelita and me, you posed as someone I care deeply about, and you're working with XANA to try and destroy the world. What do you have to say for yourself?"

She smirked. "This!" she yelled as she threw her fan at Ulrich. Her aim appeared to be dead on, but...

"What do you have to say?" Ulrich's asked again. 'Yumi's' eye's went wide with shock when she heard him. She slowly turned her head around.

"What? How, how did you do that?" she asked, a little shaken.

"Anything else?"

"Yeah," she smirked again, "Roachsters attack!" she commanded.

The roachsters turned around and began to fire.

Ulrich looked at 'Yumi' and then stuck out his hand which, surprisingly, contained her fan. "Here, you might want this." She took the fan. Ulrich let out a playful smile and then jumped over her, in a rolling type jump, and landed behind her.

'Yumi' looked forward and noticed three lasers flying right towards her. She brought up her fan and shielded herself from all three attacks. After that, she lowered her fan. She glared at the roachsters which caused them to stop firing, then she turned and looked at Ulrich who was still standing behind her. 'What caused him to be so agile all of a sudden?' she thought. 'This raises some serious questions.' She couldn't dwell on it too long, for she still had to get rid of him and Aelita. 'Yumi' smiled. "Goodbye Ulrich." she said and then disappeared behind the roachsters which, in turn, caused them to continue firing.

'So she's gonna do this the hard way huh, we'll have to do something about that.' Ulrich closed his eyes for a second to concentrate, then he opened them back up and began to dodge the lasers with great agility, much similar to that of Odd. Ulrich was jumping back and forth, and side to side in an attempt to try and get a little closer. When he was about eight feet away, he jumped to the left making his body parallel with the ground. He grabbed the bottom of his right wrist with his left hand and yelled, "Flying stars!" A flying star flew from his hand as he past each monster. Three of the stars, the three middle ones, each hit the XANA symbol on the monsters and caused them to explode into nothing but pixels.

"How did you do that?" 'Yumi' yelled in outrage. Never before had she seen anybody do moves like that, except for the Odd that XANA had created. And what about those stars, she had only seen one thing similar to them and they were 'Odd's' laser arrows. 'How did this happen?'

"What do you mean? Are you talking about the enhanced speed and agility, the new weapon, or the wall?" Ulrich asked, slightly amused.

'Yumi's' eyes went wide as things started to piece themselves together in her head. 'The speed, the agility, even the wall and weapon they were all part of that program.' Then it all came together. 'Connection, the colors, he combined his abilities with theirs. How had Jeremie come up with a program like that?'

* * *

Aelita made it safely into the tower. She was happy that she would finally get a little break, but she was also a little worried. She remembered hearing some monsters and she remembered seeing a couple lasers fly by her, but then they stopped. And what about Ulrich, she wasn't sure if the program had actually worked. 'Ulrich! That's why the monsters stopped, Ulrich must have done something to stop them. That means the program was a success! But for how long? I better heal quickly, incase he needs some back up. But until then, I better check to see if this tower has any information on our other projects.' Aelita moved to the center of the tower and slowly rose to the top.

* * *

Ulrich let out a little chuckle. "I see that look in your eyes, you're finally getting it aren't you." The last two roachsters began to fire again at Ulrich. "Well it seems I've got a little pest problem to finish up with first." 

Ulrich closed his eyes and focused his mind on the roachster on the left. The monster soon began to glow yellow and rise into the air. Confused, it fired wherever it could. This was what Ulrich had hoped it would do. He brought the roachster in front of the other one and it shot it, reducing it to nothing but pixels. With its job done, Ulrich just gently tossed the monster into the digital void.

"Now Yumi, how about we get this started, and no holding back this time." Ulrich smiled and getting into his fighting stance.

"Alright, no holding back. This time I won't go so easy on you." 'Yumi' said as she too got into her fight stance. She glared over at Ulrich.

Ulrich charged at 'Yumi'. He was quick, there was no doubting that. As he sped towards her, he pulled out his sword. He sliced her stomach with one quick slash as he passed by causing her to flinch in pain.

'Yumi's' wound quickly healed, but it left a scar on her memory. 'His speed has increased dramatically, it even surpasses my own. I wasn't even able to block his attack. And I thought XANA had thought of everything.' she thought.

"Computer, life point update." Ulrich yelled up at the computer. He was curious as to how many life points 'Yumi' had left, but more importantly it would be able to tell him if Aelita made it to the tower yet.

"_Ulrich: 40 life point, Yumi clone: 50 life points, Aelita: 22 life points,"_ the computer replied to his command.

'His attacks are killing me, literally. I need to think of a new tactic that can get him. If I remember right, Ulrich said that this program was incomplete and he didn't know how long it would last. Maybe if I can buy some time, he'll lose this new found power of his.'

"So Ulrich, tell me something, why did you decide to come on this suicide mission?"

"What suicide mission are you talking about? Who's the one who couldn't even see the last attack?"

"Oh come now Ulrich, I'm just getting warmed up. Now, what was your real reason? I know it couldn't all have been for those pathetic friends of yours, it had to be something else."

"Whoa whoa woha, hold on there. Who are you calling pathetic? Are you talking about the same 'pathetic' friends of mine that safely stopped all of XANA's attacks?"

"All but one that is. Now come on, anyone who couldn't have survived that must have been pathetic. So, what was it really? Did you finally want to finish off this war? Stop the evil from the roots?"

"Well, yeah. That would have ended up being one of the consequences of stopping XANA."

"Oh my naive little Ulrich, XANA isn't the root of evil. I thought you would have learned that by now."

"What are you talking about? XANA's basically the only evil around. Who else could there be?"

"Ulrich... you really don't look at the big picture do you. This world that you've saved time and time again, it doesn't work in spite of evil, it works with it, it works because of it. And those people that you are always trying to protect and save, you see if there wasn't evil in every single one of them, they wouldn't be human. Think about it, even you have some evil in you. You try to keep it hidden and under control, but you can't you're not strong enough."

"Yumi," he calmly spoke, "things are not always as clear as good and evil. There are gray areas too. Sure, everyone has some evil in them, but just because people have evil in them doesn't mean that they're going to be nothing but evil."

"Oh Ulrich, you're so naive. You know nothing of the true natures of these people that you save. They're all worthless little creatures that don't deserve to live."

"You have no idea what you're talking about, you haven't lived with people. Sure some of them are really annoying and can get on your nerves at times, but they are all virtually good people."

'This isn't working. I need something else, and quick. I'm starting to run low on life points and he's just warming up. I think it's time to pull out the big guns' "And what about Yumi?"

**

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Author's Notes: **

Well I did it, I got it up when I said I would. How long has it been since I've posted two chapters in a span of one week? Gosh, I think we'd have to go all the way back to the first two chapters of "Dreams of Insanity". I'll try and have the next chapter done before Father's day, the 19. Now as for this chapter, I think it's pretty good. It could be a little better in some places, but I think I got across the points I wanted to make. And how about Ulrich huh, taking the moral high road now. But 'Yumi's' pulling out everything she's got in her. I hope you all are now able to understand what the program did to Ulrich. I must say though, I was a little surprised that only one person was able to figure it out before this chapter. No extra hints were given, she just looked at the details. Oh, and there will be no question for this chapter.

**

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Review Reply: **

**top20fan13:** Thank you for the awesome review. Wow, a 13/13, that's pretty good. I'm sure you were able to find out the answer now.

**

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Help Wanted: **

I'm still looking for a proofreader if anyone is interested. Let me know, I could really use someone's help.

* * *

Alright, now I think I'm going to do something I haven't done before, a chapter dedication. I wish I had a better chapter to do this with, but this will do. I'd like to dedicate this chapter to top20fan13 and Flying Star. Both of them are just the best reviewers a writer could ask for. And, Flying Star was the only one to figure out what was happening with Ulrich. Let's give both of them a hand! (claps) 


	8. Ulrich's Death

**Disclaimer: **Simply put, I don't own Code Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

Ulrich appeared in a swirling mass of yellow. He combined the abilities of Odd, Yumi, and Aelita with his own. This caused him to become strong enough to take on 'Yumi'. Using Aelita, Odd, and Yumi's powers, he was able to help Aelita get to the tower safely and stop five roachsters that appeared to help 'Yumi'. Now as he prepares to finish the off 'Yumi', she tries to stall for time by trying to convince Ulrich that he's fighting for nothing. 'Yumi' hopes that she will cause enough time to pass so that Ulrich will lose his new found powers. At the end 'Yumi' asks the question, "What about Yumi?"

* * *

Her name. She had used her name. Even in his new form, it still affected him, sent despair throughout his body. She could tell just by the look in his eyes. She found what she needed to stall for time, or push him over the edge. This was a chance she had to take. 

"What do you mean?" Ulrich asked.

"She was the love of your life, and she died. You weren't there when it happened. You couldn't help her fight. You couldn't save her." She paused. "You couldn't die with her."

Ulrich lowered his head. "You're right, I let her down." He spoke with sadness in his voice. "I failed her. I should have been there to help her fight, to protect her. But I wasn't. Instead I told Aelita to enter the code and end her life. It's all my fault that she's gone."

'Perfect, he's doing exactly what you want him to do, just keep it up and you'll win this.' 'Yumi' thought to herself. "She wasn't a good friend was she?"

Ulrich's head shot up and his eyes shot open. "Of-of course she was. She's always been the best friend that anyone could ask for."

"But she left you at one of the most vulnerable points in your life. She left you."

Ulrich shook his head. "No, no she didn't. I mean she did leave, but she meant to come back, she just couldn't."

"No, she left you. And it wasn't your fault that she's gone, it was hers. She made sure that none of them could get out of that virtual world. She made sure that you were left all alone."

He continued to shake his head in disbelief. "No, not Yumi, she would never do anything like that, not to me." Ulrich bent his head back down as if to cry.

"But she did, I know this for a fact. I watched that day when it happened; she made sure to not let Jeremie make it to their salvation. She hurt you. It was all her fault, always has been, always will be." 'Yumi' couldn't help but laugh inside. He looked so pitiful and weak like this, it was almost sad.

"Shut up," Ulrich said in an angry, demanding voice. "Stop with your lies."

'Yumi' remained the same. "Lies? I'm telling you the truth here. She was going to make sure that you would be left alone, and you know why? Because she thought you were weak, she thought-" her words were interrupted by a sudden yell from Ulrich.

"Shut up! You don't know anything about her, what she did and everything she did for all of us! She was a real hero, and not just here in Lyoko! No matter what, she was always there for us! She was the best friend that anyone could ask for!"

'Oh crap, I think I may have pushed him too far.'

"And now you're gonna pay for what you said about Yumi." Ulrich got ready to fight again.

"That's what you think!" 'Yumi' threw her fan at Ulrich. It flew straight for Ulrich but suddenly it began to glow yellow. It then switched directions, and was headed straight for the digital void. Unable to do anything, 'Yumi' just watched as her fan was slowly devirtualized.

"Flying star!" Ulrich yelled as another disk flew from his wrist and struck 'Yumi' in her left arm. She let out a slight cry of pain as she grabbed her arm.

"Thirty," was all Ulrich said as he got his arm ready to fire again.

'Try something else; you can't let him win.'

* * *

"I should be at 50 life points now," Aelita said to no one in particular. "And I think I've found the final formula for the anti-virus and the one for getting Jeremie and the others back. Hmm, I wonder if life points really are active or if it was just a lie. Let's take a look." Aelita returned to her research.

* * *

"Flying star!" Another disk flew at 'Yumi' and hit her in her right leg. She bit her lip to conceal the pain. 

"Ten. One more shot and you're dead. Any last requests?"

"Just one," She changed her voice again to sound like Yumi. "Don't let me die Ulrich, not like this." she pleaded.

"Don't even bother; I'm not falling for your tricks any more. Flying star."

* * *

"Just as I thought, she lied." Aelita stated gleefully. Now she didn't need to worry about Ulrich, not that she really needed to with that upgrade and all. Aelita let out a little laugh as she saw what XANA's attack really was. "Flies annoying people! XANA must have really been worried. If only Jeremie, Yumi, and Odd were here to enjoy this." 

"The formula! I almost forgot!" Aelita exclaimed as she got back to typing. "I need to see if I can actually bring them back now."

* * *

'Yumi' closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, but it never came. She opened her eyes back up and saw Ulrich standing over her, dumbfounded. 

"Flying star," he said again as he tried to fire, but again nothing happened. 'Okay, so I'm out of stars. I guess now I fight the old fashioned way.' Ulrich thought as he began to pull out his sword.

However, 'Yumi' was using this little break to get herself back together. She stood up and quickly thought of a plan. 'Okay, so he's either out of stars or my plan worked and he's lost his new powers. I'll wait for his next move to see which it is.'

"Come on Ulrich, finish me off. Just get it over with and go help your precious Aelita," 'Yumi' taunted.

"Have it your way," he replied as he charged at her.

'Yumi' easily dodged the boy's attack. 'Perfect.' she thought.

Ulrich had a look of shock on his face after he stopped his charge. 'Crap, I knew it was only a matter of time before the effects wore off. With all my luck I should have figured that it would stop just as I was about to kill her. Now what am I supposed to do? I could barely hold my own before my upgrade. Alright, calm down Ulrich. Just look on the bright side, at least she doesn't have a weapon.'

Ulrich thoughts were suddenly interrupted by 'Yumi's' yell. "Come on Ulrich, I thought you were going to give it your all. That last attack was so far off,"

"Hold on now, you're the one who's at the disadvantage here. You've only got 10 life points and no weapon."

"Oh but Ulrich," she smiled, "You can't hit what you can't see." With that said, 'Yumi' disappeared. But little did Ulrich know she was right behind him. "And why do I need a fan when I can have a sword." She whispered into his ear. 'Yumi' then elbowed Ulrich in the head causing him to fall to the ground and drop his sword. She quickly picked up the sword before Ulrich could do anything.

* * *

"Alright, just put that in and then... done! I hope this works." Aelita said as she hit the remaining key.

* * *

Ulrich got up and noticed 'Yumi' standing a few yards down the path... with his sword! 'Shit, what do I do now?' Before he could think any further, 'Yumi' got and evil looking grin on her face and charged at him. She slashed Ulrich in the stomach, causing him to fall to the ground. Ulrich couldn't even see the attack, first he saw her with that grin on her face and the next thing he knew he was on the ground. 

"Uh-oh! Clone with a sword. I see way he likes this thing," she laughed.

Ulrich tried to get back up, but he was pushed back down by 'Yumi'. "No, you stay on the ground."

"You know Ulrich, it's been a pretty eventful day today. We've both had our ups and downs, and I'd have to say this is the lowest you've been all day. You've got what 20 life points left and a sword held at your throat. You know you're just moments from death right? We should have a party, don't you think? We could invite all your friends. Oh wait, you don't have any! You had them all killed, and now it's your turn."

"Go to hell," Ulrich spat up at her.

'Yumi' stood over Ulrich, grasping his sword tightly. "You first." She thrust the sword down towards the fallen boy's stomach, and made a direct hit. She left the sword in him and slowly walked away as Ulrich's body began to devirtualize.

'They say that your life passes before your eyes when you die. Well it looks like I don't get that courtesy. I wonder what will be waiting for me after a finish vanishing. Clouds and rainbows, a fiery pit, or nothing at all. Maybe they'll be waiting for me. Oh who am I kidding? For what I've done I'm going to be sent to a fiery grave. Wait, what was that? I thought I heard something in the trees. And why did Yumi just move?' Ulrich was unable to think any further for at that moment the last of him disappeared.

**

* * *

Authors Note: **

Okay, so I was a little late with this. If you've checked my profile then you'll know why. This chapter was a little tough and it's not really one of my favorite ones, except for a few parts. We'll see if the next chapter will be better. While we're on the topic, the next chapter will most likely be the last chapter, and after that I have a little surprise for all of you. And this chapter's question will be the last one, so it will be worth a lot.

Have you heard the news? Code Lyoko is coming back to the Miguzi lineup sometime this summer. And season 2 is starting in September! I'm so excited. I can't wait to see Ghost Channel again.

**

* * *

Review Reply: **

**top20fan13:** Thanks for another great review. And you deserved it.

**Doggiegal: **Thank you.

**Nikana: **Thanks for an excellent first review. I'm really glad that you like both of my stories.

**Becky:** Here's the next chapter, and you'll find out if they are still alive or not soon.

**

* * *

Question: **

Since this is the last question, I'll make it worth oh let's say 7,130 points. The question is: What happened with 'Yumi' at the end of the chapter while Ulrich was disappearing?

**

* * *

Special Note: **

I would like to just take a second to thank Doggiegal and Nikana for volunteering to proofread for me. It really was a great help. After looking at a chapter for a while, you start to see what you want and not what's really there, so it was nice to have two new sets of eyes looking over the chapter. So this chapter I dedicate to you. You earned it. I'm also going to throw in 4,500 extra points for both of you. Thank you both for all your help.


	9. One Day

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Code Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

'Yumi' caused Ulrich to believe that he was at fault for his friends' death, and he believed her! But when she tried to convince him that the real Yumi wasn't a good friend, he lost it. Ulrich tried as hard as he could to stop 'Yumi', but when she was only a mere 10 life points away from being destroyed, he lost his new powers. While all this was going on, Aelita found out the information she needed and set her new plan into action. She also discovered that 'Yumi' had indeed lied and life points weren't active. Back with 'Yumi' and Ulrich, 'Yumi' had stolen Ulrich's sword and knocked him down to 20 life points. Then, with one final move, she drove the sword into Ulrich draining the last of his life points. As he devirtualized, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

* * *

Ulrich was lying in a place that was quite strange to him. It wasn't the factory, it wasn't his room, it wasn't even Lyoko. It was nowhere, or so it seemed. He awoke in a fright and scrambled to his feet. "Huh? What, where am I?" He stuck his left hand on his brow and squinted his eyes to get a better view of the area. "Man, it's pretty dark here." He shivered. "Brrr, and cold." Ulrich wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep warm. He wandered around, trying to find something, anything in this desolate place. "Where the heck am I?" 

Then something caught his eye. Off in the distance was a person, but who it was he couldn't quite determine. Ulrich walked closer to try and get a better view of the person. When he got close enough, he suddenly realized who it was. "Yumi? Yumi is that you?" he asked the person as he reached to put his hand on her shoulder. Before his hand made it, she disappeared. "That was... weird."

Ulrich kept on walking. Not too long after, he saw someone else in the distance. Whoever it was, they were jogging. Ulrich ran to catch up with the person. As he got closer he figured out who the person was. "Odd? Slow down, man." When Ulrich had finally approached him, Odd, too, disappeared. "Odd? This isn't funny, man. What's going on here?"

"You don't know where you are, do you," came a voice from behind that Ulrich knew quite well.

"Jeremie?" Ulrich turned around to get a better look at the person. Who he saw was not only Jeremie, but two other people knew. "Odd? Yumi? What is this place?"

"This is your heart, everything that is you is here," Jeremie informed him.

"But how can that be, it's so dark and cold here."

"You've pushed everything and everybody else away, locking yourself inside and clinging to thoughts of vengeance. You never let us go," Odd said.

"How could I forget about you guys? You were my friends."

That's when Yumi decided to join the conversation. "You don't need to forget us, you just need to move on in your life. Just remember us, but don't get like you have been and push everybody away. Make some new friends; have some fun. Life isn't full of pain and suffering. If you let it, it can be wonderful." Jeremie and Odd then disappeared leaving just Yumi and Ulrich together. "It was wonderful for me, Ulrich, but there are still some things that I regret not doing."

"Like what? You always seemed to be happy to me."

"Well... I never got the chance to tell someone how I really felt about them. I was always afraid that he didn't think of me in the same way, I was afraid he'd reject me."

"Yumi, I," Ulrich spoke with concern.

"Shhh." She put a finger on his mouth. "Don't worry about it now. I know now that he felt the same for me but was afraid of the very same thing."

"Yumi" Ulrich was interrupted when he felt something he had never felt before, Yumi's lips. He was surprised to say the least. To him it felt both good and weird at the same time. It was weird because he never thought that he would get the chance to share a kiss with her, but now he did and it was better than he had imagined. Ulrich never wanted this moment to end, but sadly Yumi pulled away.

"I always wondered what it would be like to kiss you, Ulrich, and it was good. It was the best feeling I've ever had. But now you need to go."

"Yumi, I... I want to stay with you."

"I want to stay with you too. I'm sorry, but you need to move on now. I'm sure Emily would make a perfect girlfriend for you." Yumi winked. "Now you need to go and finish life."

"I'll see you again one day, right?"

"One day." She disappeared.

* * *

Ulrich woke up on the floor of the scanner. He stood up and then remembered what had just happened. "A dream; it was nothing more than a dream." He put two fingers on his lips and felt them. "No, it was more of a dream. They were reaching out to me, telling me what to do. And now I know what to do. It's time to get my life back on track." 

Ulrich walked into the elevator and headed up to the computer room, his thoughts still on the kiss that he had received from Yumi. When the elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened, Ulrich thought he heard something. He walked further into the room.

"Did you get the new coordinates set Aelita?" said the voice of someone that was sitting at the computer. Ulrich couldn't quite see who it was, but he thought he knew who it was based on his voice.

"Yes, Jeremie. The new coordinates have been set and everything is ready."

"Great, now just input the code."

"Alright." There was a long silence before Ulrich heard something he hadn't heard in two years.

"Return to the past now."

* * *

Ulrich woke up in his dorm. It was dark since it was the middle of the night. Ulrich stayed in the position that he was in so that he could think about what had just happened and why he suddenly felt different. After nothing could come to him, he decided to get up and go to the window to think. "What happened to me? Was that really Jeremie that Aelita was talking to? Why do I feel so different, yet at the same time comfortable?" Over the past two years Ulrich had grown accustomed to talking to himself in the middle of the night since he didn't have to worry about waking anybody up. Tonight, however, was different. 

"Maybe you're just not used to traveling so far into the past."

Ulrich's eyes shot open when he heard that. He spun around to come face to face with his supposed to be dead roommate standing right in front of him in his pajamas.

"You don't look so good, Ulrich. In fact, you look like you've just seen a ghost."

"O-O-Odd. But you're, you're supposed to be"

"Dead, yeah, but the trouble was we we're never really dead, and thanks to you and Aelita we're back from the hell we were put in."

"But... hold on. I remember now. Aelita did say something about you guys still being alive. So she really did bring you guys back?"

"I'm standing here in front of you aren't I? Now come on, Jeremie and Yumi are waiting for us in Jeremie's dorm."

"What's Yumi doing here, shouldn't she be home?"

"She was, but she snuck in. You've been out longer than you think."

* * *

Ulrich and Odd walked into Jeremie's dorm where Yumi and Jeremie were talking to each other. They were sitting across from each other on the bed. 

"Jeremie, Yumi? Is that really you guys? Is this really happening?" Ulrich asked, almost ready to break down.

"Of course it's us, who else would we be?" Yumi questioned.

"It's just, it's been so long since I've seen you guys. We all thought that you were dead. But here you are."

Yumi and Jeremie gave Ulrich a look of concern when Odd came over to them. "Don't worry about him, he's been sappy like this since he woke up." The two snickered a little.

"So what happened to you guys after Aelita deactivated that tower? I mean, I thought you were supposed to die." Jeremie got up and walked over to his computer and turned it on while Odd and Ulrich took his seat on the bed.

"We all thought it was the end for us. Everything around us was disappearing until it was just us three." Yumi said.

"It was pretty cool at first. An endless area where we could do whatever we wanted. We were even able to fly."

Jeremie stopped the conversation when he started talking to his computer. "Aelita, you there?"

"Yes, Jeremie, I'm here," she replied as her face appeared on the screen.

"We were just telling Ulrich what happened to us and I thought that you might want to listen in."

"Yes; I've been wondering what happened too."

"Well, as I was saying before Einstein over there interrupted me, after everything disappeared we were able to freely move around."

"Jeremie," Yumi continued, "tried his hardest to figure a way out of there, but he wasn't able to."

"After awhile, it got really boring there."

"After I'm not sure how long, we were suddenly put into a comatose state, probably because of XANA. We were just stuck asleep ever since," Jeremie stated.

"That was probably when XANA was able to make clones of you," Ulrich informed them.

"Right, well, after who knows how long we were out for, Aelita was able to bring us back. Yumi and Odd were sent to Lyoko and I, of course, manned the super calculator. When Aelita informed me that we had been gone for two years, I had her change the coordinates of the return to the past program so that we would be sent back to the night that this all happened, the night that XANA had sent me into his virtual world."

"So that explains why I've felt so strange since I woke up. My body had changed over the two years and since I had to go back to that age it felt weird."

"That right."

"Hey, don't forget to tell him about the part where we saved his butt."

"I'll let you and Yumi tell him that."

"Alright, well it happened like this..."

* * *

----Flashback----- 

Ulrich was on the ground with his sword sticking out of his stomach. He was slowly devirtualizing. 'Yumi' was walking away from Ulrich's body when she turned around because she heard a small shuffle in the trees and didn't want to take any chances. What she saw when she turned around was an arrow flying right at her. She quickly jumped backward and the arrow just missed her. When she had jumped back, she hit something with her back. She turned her head around to see the real Yumi standing behind her looking as pissed as ever.

'Yumi' turned herself fully around and spoke, "Yumi, so good of you to drop by. I could have sworn that you'd be dead, but here you are in the virtual flesh. On top of that it looks like you're ready for a fight. Now this isn't too far, with only ten life points left I'll be more than a match for you."

"Is that what you think?"

"Well, I was able to take out Ulrich and, let's face it, he was much more of a challenge than you are."

"And what about me?" Odd asked as he jumped down from the tree he was in. "Two on one, I think we can take you." Odd got ready to fire another arrow.

"Heh heh, bye," 'Yumi' said, and then she ran.

Matching her speed, Yumi stuck out her arm and close lined the imposter sending her crashing to the ground. "Let's see... How did you put it?" Yumi stuck her finger to her brow to give the appearance that she was thinking. "Oh, yes, 'no, you stay on the ground,'" she said in an angry tone.

"So what should we do with her?" Odd asked cracking his knuckles.

"We kill her, of course. Would you like to do the honors?"

"It would be my pleasure." Odd held his arm straight down at the clone. "Laser Arrow!" he shouted. An arrow flew from his glove and right into 'Yumi's' stomach, causing her to devirtualize into nothing but pixels.

* * *

While all this was happening, Aelita had made her way to the activated tower, which was left unguarded because XANA was to preoccupied with 'Yumi'. When she arrived at the tower, she entered and walked to the middle platform. When she reached the center, she slowly rose to the upper platform. Aelita walked over to the center of the platform. "Alright. Jeremie, I'm here. Now what?" Aelita was so ecstatic to be able talk with Jeremie again, she almost couldn't believe it. 

"Now you need to reset the return to the past coordinates so that we will return to the night that XANA abducted me. Then you just simply put in the code and we return to the past."

"Alright Jeremie." Aelita got to work on setting the new coordinates.

"Did you get the new coordinates set Aelita?"

"Yes Jeremie. The new coordinates have been set and everything is ready."

"Great, now just input the code."

"Alright." Aelita stuck her hand on the screen and her name appeared. Then her name disappeared and it asked for the code. Aelita put in the code, L-Y-O-K-O. The screens in the tower descended and after a moment rose back up.

"Return to the past now," Jeremie said as he hit the enter key. A white light engulfed the planet sending it and it's people two years into the past.

-----End flashback------

* * *

"And the rest, as they say, is history." 

"Odd, you are aware that we have gone into the past and now none of that has actually happened."

"Yeah, but I've just always wanted to say that." Jeremie smacked his hand on his forehead.

"So now that we've told our side of the story, how about you tell us what you've done for those couple of years," Yumi asked Ulrich.

For the next hour or two, Ulrich and Aelita informed their three friends everything that they had done up to Ulrich getting devirtualized by Yumi's clone. Ulrich made sure that he left out the part about him talking to them after the battle.

"Wow, you've been through a lot. All the pain and suffering you've been through, I can't imagine what it must have been like for you," Yumi said feeling sorry for Ulrich.

"And hopefully you won't have to. I'll make sure that XANA is never able to do this to any of you."

"And now thanks to you, we have the anti-virus 70 percent done. All Einstein has to do now is finish that last 30 percent and we'll be XANA free."

"Actually Odd, while I was looking around in the towers I was able to find out the missing part of the anti-virus. It was pretty clever of XANA actually. It copied the code onto Ulrich so now all we have to do is scan Ulrich and copy the code and we'll finally have it and I'll be able to come to your world for good."

"I'd say we do it now, but it's pretty late right now so tomorrow we can go ahead and do it. That way we also have the entire weekend to get Aelita the right certifications to be considered human."

"Well then, I'm off to bed. I'll see you all in the morning." Odd got off the bed and stretched. "Ulrich, don't be too loud when you come in; I want to get my shut eye."

"Well I'll have to be pretty loud to be louder than your snoring," Ulrich mused.

"Very funny. A guy gets back from being in nothingness for two years and then saves your butt and this is the thanks he gets." Odd walked out of the room.

"Well I better get going too, I don't want my parents to realize that I snuck out." Yumi got up and headed to the door. "Goodnight guys."

"Goodnight Yumi," Jeremie said.

"Hold on Yumi." Ulrich jumped up and walked over to her. "You don't mind if I, if I walk you home." He began to blush.

"I don't mind at all," she replied blushing a little.

"See you tomorrow Jeremie." Ulrich closed the door leaving Jeremie and his princess alone.

* * *

The walk out of the school and off the school grounds had been a quiet one quite simply because Ulrich and Yumi didn't want to get caught being out after curfew. After they made it out of the school, it was completely different. 

"It's good to have you back Yumi."

"It's good to be back. I've missed everybody and everything so much."

"Even Sissi?"

"Even Sissi." The two shared a laugh.

'God, I never knew how much I really missed her laugh.'

"Yumi, there's something that I purposely forgot to mention back there, and I think now is the perfect time to mention it."

"What is it, Ulrich?"

"Well, after I was devirtualized I kind of had this dream, see. And in it you were all there and things were said." Even though it couldn't be seen in the dark of night, Ulrich was starting to blush madly. "I believe everything that was said was true. After I woke up, I knew that it was more than a dream, you and Jeremie and Odd were reaching out to me. So what it is that I want to ask is" Ulrich stopped mid sentence when he realized that he and Yumi had both stopped walking and were now looking into each others eyes. 'Her eyes, they're so... beautiful. I only wish that I could see them better.'

'I never realized how brown his eyes were before. They're so, so alluring.' Unknown to both of them was that they were slowly moving there heads together. Lost in each others eyes, they were surprised when they felt the other's lips on their own. Ulrich and Yumi both closed their eyes to enjoy the feeling more. The kiss deepened. Moments later, they had to regrettably part.

"That was...unexpected," Yumi said.

"Yumi, will you... would you like to go out sometime?"

"Like on a date?"

'She hates me now, I know it. I knew I should have stopped that kiss when I had the chance, but I just couldn't.' "Uh-huh."

"Ulrich, I'd, I'd love to."

Ulrich gave her a smile that was almost as big as Odd's and she smiled back. They walked the rest of the way to Yumi's house hand in hand. They didn't say another word; they just enjoyed each other's company.

The rest of that night was pretty peaceful. Ulrich was able to sneak back into the school without getting caught or waking Odd. Jeremie stayed up for about another hour talking to Aelita until she forced him to get some sleep. All was well and finally somewhat normal for our heroes. That is, until the next morning.

"Can we please hurry this up, I'm getting hungry." Odd and Yumi were standing on either side of Jeremie as he sat in his chair at the super calculator. Jeremie had pulled them all out of bed at the crack of dawn and then pulled them all to the factory. He wanted to get everything done as quickly as he could so that they wouldn't have to worry about XANA anymore.

"Odd, you're always hungry," Yumi replied.

"Well, yeah, but usually I've eaten by now."

"Alright Ulrich, you can exit the scanner now," Jeremie said into the microphone. "Aelita, have you set up the firewall yet?"

Aelita's face appeared on the screen. "Yes, but you need to hurry. It's no telling how long it will last against XANA."

"If you can, put up a couple extra just to be safe."

"Alright Jeremie, I'll try." Aelita's face disappeared from the screen.

Ulrich walked out of the elevator and joined the rest of the group. "What do you have left to do Jeremie?"

"I just need to fix the code with the rest of the anti-virus, then do a test run, and then we should be all ready."

Aelita's face appeared on the screen. This time she looked really worried. "Jeremie, XANA's attacking the tower."

"Hold on Aelita, help is on the way."

Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were already on their way to the elevator.

"Just stay in the tower, Aelita, the others will be there soon."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I apologize for how late this was. I actually had up to this point done like last week, but I ended up going further on thinking that it'd be done soon. It wasn't. So, with the advice of a friend, I split it up into two chapters. Who knows, with how long the next one's getting I may have to split it up too. But anyways, I really liked this chapter. What do you think? Now this was my first attempt at some fluff, so please let me know how I did. There's defiantly more of that to come, especially for my personal favorite couple. And again I'd like to say a big thank you to my great proofreaders, Doggiegal and Nikana.

* * *

**Review Reply:**

**top20fan13: **Thanks again for the awesome review. Yep, you're right.

**snakealien: **Here you go, and thanks for the review.

* * *

**Question:**

What's waiting for the gang in Lyoko? (Make sure you're specific with you're guess)


	10. One Final Strike

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Code Lyoko.

**Last Time:**

Ulrich woke up in an unfamiliar place and ends up finding Jeremie, Yumi, and Odd there. They tell him that he needs to move on with his life. After Jeremie and Odd disappear, Yumi and Ulrich talk a little more, and then she kisses him. Then Ulrich wakes up in the factory. Realizing that what had just happened was just a dream, he heads back up to the super computer. When he gets up there, time reverses. Ulrich wakes up in his room, and Odd's there too. They head to Jeremie's dorm where Yumi and Jeremie are waiting for them. Ulrich finds out that this is not a trick, but in fact Aelita's program to bring them back worked. He also finds out that he's gone back to the day Jeremie was taken by XANA.

Ulrich and Aelita tell about what they went through and Jeremie, Yumi, and Odd tell what happened to them and how they defeated the fake Yumi. Aelita also informs everyone that the formula for the anti-virus was actually implanted into Ulrich's code by XANA. After that, Ulrich walks Yumi home. On the way there they talk some more and end up kissing and Ulrich finally gathers the courage to ask Yumi out on a date. The next morning they all head to the factory to cure Aelita and materialize her permanently. When they get there, Aelita tells them that some monsters are attacking the tower. What's attacking? Will Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd be able to stop whatever, or whoever, is attacking and finally bring Aelita safely to earth? Find out now.

* * *

Ulrich, Yumi and Odd each stepped into their scanners. 

"You're headed for the forest region. The tower that Aelita's in will be about 1 mile north of where you'll be virtualized at."

The scanner doors closed. "Transfer Ulrich. Transfer Odd. Transfer Yumi," Jeremie's voice echoed throughout the scanner level of the factory. The scanners began to come to life and the three were lifted into the air. "Scanner Ulrich. Scanner Odd. Scanner Yumi." They began to spin. "Virtualization." A huge gush of wind pushed up from the scanner and gave them the usual sensation of being virtualized.

* * *

Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi appeared in the forest region and landed safely on the ground. "Do you have any idea what we've got waiting for us?" Ulrich asked Jeremie. 

"Well, there are two monsters and, as far as I can tell, one is a mega tank."

"And the other?"

"I'm not sure; the computer doesn't seem to recognize it. Just get over there now and take care of them before they destroy the tower." The three started running north.

'I really hope that the other monster isn't who I think it is.'

They arrived at the tower not too long after that, but they stayed hidden behind the trees. Yumi looked out from where she was to get a better look. She saw the mega tank and something else, something that looked human. She couldn't tell for sure because it was covered up in a cloak. She thought up a plan. If she could time this right, she could have Odd destroy the mega tank before it even noticed they were there.

The mega tank opened to take another shot on the tower. Yumi made her signal to Odd and he snuck out from behind the tree and aimed. "Laser arrow," he said in a whisper. An arrow flew from his glove and headed straight for the tank's weak spot.

Unfortunately, the arrow was stopped mere feet from the mega tank's weak spot. By what? Well, it was stopped by a sword much similar to that of Ulrich's.

Yumi, Odd, and Ulrich stood in complete shock when they saw this happen. Yumi and Odd were in even more shock when the figure lifted his hands to the hood of his clock to reveal none other than Ulrich.

'I knew it. I knew it had to be him. It was only a matter of time before XANA brought him out.' "Guys, come here. I've got a plan." Yumi and Odd hustled over to Ulrich to listen to his plan.

* * *

Ulrich stepped out from behind the tree and started walking towards the two monsters. "Well, I guess I should be flattered, huh? XANA saves my clone for last; must mean that you're the strongest." 

"Just like you."

Ulrich's brow tightened. "No, you're not just like me. You're evil and I'm not. I'm strong-"

'Ulrich' cut Ulrich off, "and I'm stronger."

Ulrich stopped face to face with his clone. "That may be, but at least I'm not some puppet controlled by XANA."

* * *

"Guys, what's going on down there? How come you haven't defeated those two monsters yet?" 

"Jeremie, you remember those clones of me and Yumi that Ulrich told you about? Well, it seems that XANA made a third one and this one's stronger than the other two."

"You can't be serious. It took everything Ulrich had just to bring that last one down to 10 life points. You two need to help him now."

"But what about the mega tank?" Yumi asked.

"Don't worry about it, just focus on getting rid of that clone. We need to keep XANA as busy as we can so that we can materialize Aelita."

* * *

"So Ulrich, why don't you invite your friends over here, or are they scared?" 

"Leave them out of this; they don't have anything to do with this."

"Well, it seems that they would beg to differ since they're on their way over here now."

Ulrich turned around to see Yumi and Odd running over to him. "You two take care of the mega tank; I'll take care of this guy."

"But Ulrich, this clone is stronger than you! It's suicide! Please, let us help you," Yumi begged.

"And besides, I never got a chance to take on my clone. I think I deserve to get yours."

"No, you two take care of the tank and make sure that everything's okay with Aelita."

Even Jeremie tried to reason with Ulrich. "Ulrich, listen to them. The only way that you'll be able to defeat your clone is if you work together. You can't do this alone."

"I worked alone for two years, I think I can handle it one more time."

'This isn't part of the plan. What's he trying to do?' It stung Yumi deep in her heart. She didn't like to see Ulrich like this. She cared about him too much for him to act like this. "You're not alone anymore Ulrich. You have us. You have me."

'Did she really just say that? Does that mean that she really does care for me? No, I can't think about that now. We need to concentrate on the monsters.' "Get rid of the mega tank, and then you can help me."

* * *

"Jeremie," Aelita's face reappeared on the screen. "How's the anti-virus coming?" 

"Huh, oh that. I'm almost done with it, but we've run into a slight problem."

"Is there something wrong with the code?"

"No it's not that. You remember the Yumi and Odd clones?" She shook her head yes. "Well, it seems that XANA had a third one, one that was Ulrich."

"Oh my, that is bad."

"Yeah, and worst of all Ulrich wants to take it on himself."

"But that's crazy; he barely survived the other two."

"That's what we've been trying to tell him, but he's got such a thick head."

"Do you really blame him though? He fought alone for two years. It's got to be hard for him to get back to working as a team."

* * *

Yumi and Odd headed past the two Ulrichs to take care of the mega tank. 

"Now Ulrich, you know you're no match for me. Why don't you just let one of them help?" 'Ulrich' pulled his sword back out. "Like this one." He stuck his sword right at Yumi's neck.

Yumi and Odd froze. Neither knew what to do now. They needed Yumi if they were going to finish this.

"Leave her out of this. She's not part of this. It's just you and me."

"Well, if it's the only way that you'll fight, then I guess I'll let her go." He lowered his sword.

Yumi let out a sigh of relief. 'That was close. We can't afford anything else like that.' Yumi and Odd continued on toward the tank.

"You ready for this, Yumi?"

"Yeah, you?"

"Always." They turned around to get a final look at Ulrich.

"Let's get this started already." 'Ulrich' spoke in an irritated manner.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Laser Barrage!" Odd yelled as the nine remaining arrows flew out of his glove and right into 'Ulrich's' back.

The clone let out a scream of pain. "You, you tricked me."

"And we're not done yet." Ulrich then flipped over his clone and landed on the mega tank.

'Ulrich' turned around to watch when he came face to face with a fan, Yumi's fan to be exact. He fell to the ground and started to devirtualize.

"Impact!" Ulrich yelled as he shoved his sword into the mega tank's only vulnerable spot. He jumped off as it exploded.

Ulrich ran over to where Yumi and Odd were standing. "Great job guys. My plan worked perfectly."

Yumi walked over to Ulrich so that she was standing face to face with him. Then she did something completely unexpected, she slapped him! "Next time you come up with a stupid plan like that, just don't okay?"

"Uh-oh, lover's quarrel!" Yumi and Ulrich gave Odd a death glare. "Hehe, I think I'll go check on Aelita and make sure Einstein's doing everything right." Before the other two could even respond, Odd was already heading into the tower.

* * *

Odd fazed through the tower, catching the attention of Aelita. "Oh, hi Odd. How are things going out there?" 

"Well we managed to destroy both monsters, and now Ulrich and Yumi are at it again."

"So I heard; Jeremie was telling me all about it."

"How's the anti-virus coming? Do we finally get to bring the princess home?"

Aelita giggled at Odd's pet name for her. "We've almost got it. Jeremie just has to run a"

Aelita was cut off by the loud holler of a very excited boy. "Success! The anti-virus passed the test run. Now we can administer it. Are you ready Aelita?"

"Yes Jeremie."

* * *

Ulrich and Yumi started to walk away from the tower. Ulrich had his head lowered. "You were really worried about me, weren't you?" he finally managed to ask. 

"I was. We just got back and I didn't want to lose you again."

Ulrich felt awful. The last thing he ever wanted to do was to make Yumi worry. "I'm sorry. I wasn't really thinking everything through."

"It's alright. Just next time think your plan through thoroughly."

* * *

Aelita floated down from the upper platform. When she was about half-way there, she stopped. The screens around here turned green and wrapped themselves around her. Moments later, Aelita finished her decent. 

"Did it work Einstein?"

"Hold on a second, let me run a quick scan." Moments later, Jeremie said happily, "It worked! Aelita you're now virus free."

"That's great Jeremie. Are you ready to materialize me?"

"In a minute. First I want bring Odd, Yumi, and Ulrich out of Lyoko so they can meet you in the factory when you get there. Are you ready Odd?"

"Go ahead." Odd began to devirtualize. He waved to Aelita and said, "See you on the other side, Princess."

* * *

"Yumi, Ulrich?" Jeremie's voice broke through the silence that had set itself around the two. "Aelita's ready to be materialized. I'm taking you guys out of Lyoko. You ready?" 

"Yep," they replied in unison. After a second they started to devirtualize.

* * *

"Okay Aelita, they're waiting for you now." 

"I'm ready Jeremie."

"Alright. Go ahead and head to the middle of the tower again."

Aelita stepped back in the center of the tower and floated half-way up. When she got there, she could hear Jeremie say, "Code: Earth." Then all the screens around her wrapped her up again, this time materializing her.

* * *

Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were waiting by the scanners eager to see Aelita in the flesh again. They heard the middle scanner begin to hum, followed by the doors opening up. Yumi peered in and there, tucked up in the fetal position, was Aelita. Her eyes slowly opened and she looked up at Yumi. Yumi extended her hand and Aelita gratefully took it. 

"Guys, is she there yet?" Jeremie asked through the intercom.

"Yeah Jeremie, she's here," Ulrich replied.

"Good. Aelita, I need you to get back in the scanner. I want to run one more scan just to make sure that you really are virus free."

"Okay Jeremie." Aelita stepped back in the scanner and the doors closed. After about a minute, the doors opened back up and Aelita stepped back out.

"So what's the verdict Einstein? Is she here for good?"

"You're all clear Aelita, no viruses in you. Now you four stay there and I'll be down in a moment."

* * *

Jeremie stepped out of the elevator and walked over to his friends who were currently chatting with Aelita. 'I've missed seeing her like this. It's been so long, but now I'll always get to see her like this.' "Well I see you all made the trip alright." 

"No complaints here," Odd said.

"Well are you ready now?"

"Ready? For what?" Yumi asked.

"To shut down XANA for good." Yumi and Odd looked a little shocked that Jeremie would suggest that so quickly. The last time that Aelita was there they had waited an entire day before attempting to shut down XANA, now he wanted to do it immediately?

"What's the rush?" Odd asked.

"You're afraid that XANA's going to try something else aren't you?" Aelita asked.

"Yes. Just because you're out of Lyoko doesn't mean that XANA's going to stop attacking. We need to get rid of it before it can get rid of us."

"I agree with Jeremie. Aelita and I fought that thing longer than the rest of you. It was already getting desperate when we found you. There's no telling what XANA's next attack could be. It may attack a hospital or a military base or something. We don't want that burden on our shoulders."

"I must agree with Ulrich. Some of XANA's more recent attacks were pretty bad. Lives were so close to being lost when it attacked the time before last."

"They're right, let's get this over with," a strangely level headed Odd said.

* * *

The five friends stood at the entrance to the room. A large pillar like structure began to rise up from the floor. Jeremie, Odd, and Yumi stood in awe. It had been a long time since they had last seen this and it was just an amazing sight for them. 

Odd managed to be the one to ask the big question. "So who's gonna turn it off?"

They looked around at each other trying to decide who should do it. Jeremie was the first to give his suggestion. "Ulrich, I think you should do it. You've been waiting to do this for so long; I think it would be best for you to have the honors."

Ulrich merely nodded and stepped forward. Jeremie took the opportunity to move behind Aelita just incase something were to go wrong he would be there to catch her.

Ulrich stooped at the foot of the pillar. A small door with the symbol of XANA on it opened up to reveal the switch. Ulrich brought his shaking hand up to it and put it on the switch. He closed his eyes and spoke. "XANA, you've put us through a lot these past few years. You've caused us so much pain. But you managed to do something that you never thought that you would do, nor did you want to. You strengthened our friendship. And it was that strength that helped me throughout those two years when you so violently stripped away my friends. Now, you finally get what's coming to you. May you never disturb ours or anyone else's lives ever again." Ulrich pulled the switch down ending all power to the computer. All the lights in the room slowly dimmed until they finally went out. Ulrich removed his hand from the switch.

"Jeremie? Am I still okay?" Aelita turned around to face him.

"You seem okay to me. Let's give it some time though, knowing XANA there is a chance that it is trying to pull something. But as long as everything is okay, we might as well get to work on you certifications."

The four turned around and headed for the elevator. On the way there, Odd noticed that Ulrich wasn't with them. He turned around to see his friend still standing at the same spot he was in. "Hey Ulrich, you coming, man?"

"No, I'm gonna stay here for a few more minutes. You guys go along ahead and I'll catch up with you later," he replied without turning his head.

"Suit yourself."

Yumi stopped and looked over at Ulrich. She then whispered in Odd's ear, "I think I'll stay here and make sure he's okay."

"Yeah, sure." Yumi turned back around so that she was facing Ulrich, but still out of his sight. Once the rest of the gang was inside the elevator, the doors closed and they headed back up.

Once he believed that everyone was gone, Ulrich began to talk. "You made my life miserable for so long, XANA. You really made it a living hell. You know, this isn't the first time I've stood down here alone talking to you. So many times I wanted to just come down here and do what I just did. I didn't care if it meant losing Aelita. You had me broken. But then as I would reach for your switch, I could feel my friends stop me. It reminded me that I wasn't really doing this for Aelita, but for them. Bringing her into the real world permanently was the only thing that I could do to not feel as bad for losing my friends. I think that is what really kept me going, kept me working harder and harder to stop you. The thing you thought would destroy me ended up destroying you. I guess that's why Aelita chose us. She could tell that no matter what, our bond would keep us together even if you took us apart."

"Two years I waited. Bring Aelita here permanently and shut you down, that's all I wanted to do. I dreamt that that would bring some closure to the painful life you brought me. For two years I went through so much pain that, at many times, I would just want to stop and have it all end. But I never gave up hope. I kept the mission alive, and look what it brought me. Those two years have been erased from everyone's mind, and I have my friends back. And now we've finally put an end to you, the virus that controlled our lives for so long. It's finally over. The long journey is done. We can live our lives as normal people again and never have to worry about you showing up again. My dreams of closure have finally become a reality." He let out a little laugh. "I get it now."

"What do you get?" Yumi walked up and stood next to him.

Ulrich's eyes went wide. "Yumi, I didn't realize you were still here." Ulrich turned to face here. "How much of that did you here?"

"The whole thing. So this is what it's like for you to really open up, huh? You got to be left alone in a room?"

"What can I say, I like my privacy. And if I remember correctly, you're not one to snoop." Ulrich smiled at her.

"I guess you don't know me as well as you think." She smiled back.

"I'd like to, if you'd let me."

"Well then, how about that date then?"

"You want to go now?" Yumi nodded. "Well then, let's go." They turned around and headed back to the elevator hand in hand.

* * *

When Odd, Jeremie, and Aelita made it back to the school, Odd headed straight for the cafeteria to see if they had any food left over while Jeremie and Aelita went to Jeremie's room so that Jeremie could work on getting Aelita the certifications that she would need. After working for a few hours, Jeremie had finished. 

"Okay Aelita, everything seems to be in order. Monday morning Ulrich and Odd are going to talk to the principal to let him know that you're here. Now all we need to do is make sure everything's okay with Yumi's parents and you should be set."

"Thank you so much Jeremie."

"There is one more thing that we should probably do though?"

"And what's that?"

"We need to get you a few things, such as clothes and a cell phone."

"Where can we go for all of this?"

Jeremie let out a small chuckle. With how smart Aelita is, it's so easy to forget that she doesn't know some of the more common things in life. "We can head into town and go to the mall. Although, now that I think about it, we should probably wait until tomorrow so that you can go with Yumi."

"Yes," she paused. Aelita grabbed her stomach and looked down at it. "Jeremie, I think my body is asking for nourishment."

Jeremie looked at his watch. "Yes it is about dinner time. Shall we head down to the cafeteria to eat with the others?"

"Sure, why not."

* * *

Later that evening, Jeremie and Aelita were back in Jeremie's room talking about random stuff that Aelita wanted to know about. 

"Jeremie, back in Lyoko I read about the lunar and solar cycles and I was wonder if we could possibly watch the sunset and rise. I have long since wondered what both events are like."

"Well I don't see why not. Hmm, I think the best place to see it from would probably be on top of the factory."

* * *

Jeremie and Aelita arrived at the factory shortly after. They climbed up to the roof and made it there just as the bottom of the sun was touching the horizon. They sat down next to each other on the edge of the building facing the sun. 

"Wow!" Aelita exclaimed in amazement. Never before had she seen such colors. It was so beautiful.

The two stayed silent until the last gleam of the sun was gone. "That was very enjoyable, Jeremie."

"What did you think of the colors?"

"They were beautiful. I've never seen anything more beautiful."

"So, Aelita, did you want to stay out here all night and wait for the sun to rise, or did you want to go back to Yumi's house and we can come back in the morning?"

"Hmm, well if we leave then I'm afraid that we may miss it. I think we should stay out here."

After a couple of hours of chatting between the two, there was a ringing sound coming from Jeremie's pocket. Jeremie pulled out his cell phone. "Hello," he answered.

"Jeremie? Do you know where Aelita is?" It was Yumi. She seemed worried.

"Yeah, she's here with me. We're at the factory. Aelita wanted to watch the sun set and rise. Why? Is something wrong?"

"No, but my parents were expecting Aelita here an hour ago."

"Oh, sorry. We didn't know. Tell your parents that there was a flight delay because of rain or something and that she'll be there in the morning."

"Are you two planning on staying out there all night?"

"Yeah. It was Aelita's idea."

"Well be careful and don't do anything stupid."

Jeremie laughed. "Don't worry, we won't." With that said he ended the call and put his phone back in his pocket.

Throughout the night Jeremie had been fighting hard with himself on whether or not he should tell Aelita how he really felt about her. At around midnight, he had finally gathered up the courage to tell her. "Aelita?" he asked as a blush slowly started to creep towards his face.

"Yes Jeremie."

"Well, um uh there, there's been um something that I've, I've needed to uh tell you." Jeremie couldn't help but stammer. This was the first time that he'd ever actually told a girl something like this.

"What is it Jeremie?"

"Well, uh. Ever since I first met you, I uh knew that you were special to me. What I'm trying to say is that I uh, I think I love you."

To say that Aelita was slightly taken aback by this would be an understatement. She didn't really know what to say. "Jeremie... I," she looked down. "I don't think I can accept your invitation of love."

Heartbroken. That was the only word that could describe Jeremie at that moment. He didn't know what to do or say. All he knew was that it hurt, badly.

Aelita looked over at him and she could see the sorrow in his eyes. "Jeremie, it's not you though. It's just that I've been in this world for only a short period of time and I don't quite understand all these emotions and feelings that I'm now getting. Maybe one day I can accept your love, but right now I don't think I'll be able. I'm really sorry Jeremie."

Now Jeremie felt a little better. And it all made sense to him too. He wouldn't want to ask something of her if she didn't quite understand it. So tonight they'll be just friends, but maybe one day they can become more.

Not too long after that, both were feeling very tired. They moved away from the edge and laid down on the roof. They looked up at the stars and Jeremie explained some of the constellations to Aelita. Before long, both had fallen asleep.

* * *

As the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, one of its rays passed right over Aelita's eyes causing her to wake up. She stood up and stretched, and then she looked over at her sleeping friend. Aelita walked over to him and lightly nudged his shoulder. "Jeremie, Jeremie, time to get up. The sun is rising," she softly spoke into his ear. 

Jeremie woke up. He looked up and saw Aelita staring at him. He began to blush a little, before she again informed him that the sun was rising. He got up and they walked over to the eastern edge of the building. They watched the sun rise. It was one of the most beautiful things either had seen.

* * *

-Ulrich's Perspective, 13 Years Later- 

"Wow, I can't believe it's already been 13 years since that happened. Time sure does fly when you're living a good life. Well, so far most of it's been good. Although there was a short period of time where we didn't really get to see much of each other. That was college. We all ended up going our separate ways for college. We still stayed in contact and we were able to see each other in the summer and on holiday break. Thank goodness when we all finished college we ended up moving back to this area of France."

"I ended up following my dream and right after college I was drafted into the pro football (A/N: soccer) league. It's been going pretty well, too. You don't need to worry too much about me, either. If something was to happen to me and I wouldn't be able to play professionally anymore, I still have a back up plan. Now, get this, I plan on starting my own football camp for kids, you know, teach them the basics and how to hone their abilities so that maybe, one day, they could be pros too. And a couple years ago something very special happened to me and my long time girlfriend; we got married. Yep, Yumi and I finally tied the knot. And I got to tell you, the honeymoon in Spain was the best."

"But enough about me. Odd's been a pretty busy guy too. He went to a fancy art school, surprisingly, and is now a pretty popular artist. He owns his own studio now, which he calls Odd Art. Catchy name, if you ask me. It got a few strange looks when he first started, but after people could see what he could do, business was booming. His love life has been pretty good too. He had a rocky start, but it all ended up good. He dated that Sam girl for a couple of years before he finally broke it off with her. Let me just say that I was more than happy about that. Don't get me wrong though. I was happy that he had someone; I just didn't like her. Well, in college he met an old friend, Naomi, and they started dating not too long after that. Last year they ended up getting married."

"Aelita's been busy too. She ended up going into the teaching field. She teaches eighth graders at one of the local schools now. From what I've heard, she's one of the best teachers at the school. Her students seem to really like her too."

"And then there's my dear Yumi. Well, she surprised us all when she decided to study gourmet cooking. When she first tried to feed us some of her cooking, we were all a little scared, but it ended up being really good. Now she's the head chef at one of the fanciest restaurants in the area. She's hoping to one day save up enough money to open her own restaurant. That's my Yumi for you."

"And that brings us to Jeremie. In college he studied computer technology, well, I don't know if study would be the right word. He already knew most of the stuff that his professors were teaching. But anyway, now he is the head of the technology department at some big computer corporation. He's been dating someone for quite a few years now. I wonder when he's finally going to ask her to marry him. He hasn't said anything to her about Lyoko; I don't blame him either. Actually, none of us never really talk about that anymore."

* * *

-Normal Point of View- 

Jeremie was walking out of a restaurant hand in hand with his date. It was a pretty fancy restaurant as they were both dressed up. Jeremie was wearing a black tuxedo, and she was wearing a beautiful light blue dress with matching silk gloves. When they arrived at Jeremie's car, he turned around to face her and grabbed her free hand with his.

"We've been together a long time now. We were friends all throughout high school and college. My friends thought that you were great and you hung out with us all the time. We never stopped talking during those four years we were in college either. Whenever I got the chance I would come and visit you. When I first asked you out on a real date, it was the happiest day of my life. You've asked me a lot of questions throughout the years and I've asked you many too. Now, I have one more to ask you." Jeremie bent down on one knee and stuck his right hand into his tux. "I love you more than anything else in life." He pulled out a little box. "Will you marry me?" He opened up the box.

She was so happy that she couldn't even speak. She nodded her head yes and he took the ring out of the box and put it on the appropriate finger. The ring itself wasn't too exquisite, just a simple gold band with two small diamonds in it. He wanted to save up his money so he could buy a better one for their wedding night.

"Aelita Belpois, has a nice ring to it."

"It's a perfect match."

"Just like you and me."

* * *

**Authors Note:**

"The only thing that matters is the ending. It's the most important part of the story, the ending. And this one's very good. This one's perfect." -Mort Rainey, Secret Window. Now how was that for an ending? Huh? Now tell me the truth here, how many of you thought that Jeremie was dating someone other than Aelita. I know I would have. I really like this ending, don't you? After everything being all revenge and vengeance throughout the story, it's good to have a nice ending. Well if you haven't guessed it yet, this is the last chapter of "Dreams of Closure".

What's next for me? What else, I'm gonna keep on writing. Look for me next month with my new story, "Double Lives". Hope to see you all there.

* * *

**Review Reply:**

**top20fan13:** Thanks for the great review. I'm glad it was worth the wait. I think I can give you 1000 points for that guess.

**snakealien: **Aww, thank you.I try my hardest toput in plenty of emotion. Thank you so much for the awesome review! And don't worry, I won't stop writing.

**American-Kitty: **Glad you loved it.

**Doggiegal:** Not quite, but good guess.

**Lord Maximus:** Yep, they're back. Not quite, but good guess.

**Note: All reviews for this chapter (chapter 10) will be replied to in my profile. They will be left up for 1 month after this chapter is posted.**

* * *

This story's been fun to write and I loved hearing from all of you. I hope to hear back from you all in my next story. Until then, have fun, be safe, stay cool (or warm, depending on the weather), keep reading, and don't forget to drop a review for any story you read. 


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